The Shadow's Apprentice
by Alandor Mersoc
Summary: Waking up in a strange room was a surreal experience. Leaving his home had been exciting. Surviving had taught him. It had been an interesting year for him. Two things he had learnt over all else, there was a difference between surviving and living. And to live you must be free. Rated M for violence
1. Chapter 1

It had been a peaceful night in the village of Konoha, the streets were empty, and all was silent. In the forest surrounding the village it was a different story, even the most inexperience Ninja could follow the trail of blood that smeared the once pristine leaves. If one were to follow the trail they would find a small boy no older than four trying to hide himself in the hollow of a tree. He had bright sun kissed blonde hair, his chubby face was smeared with dirt, which was slightly damp from the tears running from his bug blue eyes. The most defining feature however was the six whisker like marks that adorned his cheeks.

He was wearing a white t-shirt that looked to be two sizes too big for him, it was tattered, with streaks of red and splotches of dirt. On the back of the shirt had a red spiral design. The boy also had a pair of dirty green shorts with some minor tares in them.

As the boy tried to hide himself further into the tree he could hear the sound of footsteps getting closer. Whoever was making their way through the forest was not trying to hide their presence from him.

Each crunch was agonising to the child all that he wanted was for them to leave, to just turn around and walk in the other direction. But as the footsteps drew closer he could hear his little heart beating in his hears.

'_Please just go away, please, please, please."_ Where the only thoughts running through the child's head. As the sounds drew closer and closer the boy did the only thing that he could in order to save himself. He held his breath in the hope that the people who were out there wouldn't be able to find him.

"Where is the little Bastard" he heard a gruff voice say.

"I don't know maybe he went this way, he couldn't have gotten far." The second voice sounded much smoother then the first.

"Don't be a fool if he went any ware it would have been in this direction." The first speaker said.

"Shush, if you don't stop the little demon will hear and get away. Some of the Ninjas are looking for him as well it's only a matter of time." This time it was a feminine voice that spoke.

As the boy tried to set as still as he could possibly be he finally heard the footsteps starting to leave, letting out the breath he was holding in he finally thought that he would be safe, scooting further back into the hollowed out tree he rested his back against the trunk, letting his weary mind finally rest he closed his eyes.

"Got you, you little Bastard!" He heard someone shout before he felt a callous hand grab him by the scruff of the neck.

Being roughly pulled from his hiding spot he suddenly found himself surrounded on all sides, not knowing what to do the boy tried to tuck himself into a ball, he knew there was nowhere to run.

"I'm sorry" he tried to choke out. Hoping beyond hope that the simple words would be able to save him from whatever the people had in store for him.

"Do you hear that, the Demon is sorry? Well we should just let him be" one of the men said his voice just dripping with sarcasm.

Unfortunately the boy didn't understand sarcasm and at hearing the man's words got his hopes up and not receiving another beating. As he tried to lift himself up feeling slightly better about not being hurt he suddenly felt the air leave his lungs as he was kicked in the stomach. If any of the people heard the sudden crack they didn't let on.

"Why should we show you mercy when you didn't show any huh?" The second man spoke rearing his leg back ready to deliver another kick.

Gasping for breath the boy tried to cry out in pain, before the pain left he felt another blow on his stomach. His eyes burned as tears starter to fall from his eyes. He couldn't even focus enough to form coherent thoughts.

The second kick suddenly became a third, then a fourth until blow after blow rained down upon him, tears fell from eyes as he tried to beg them to stop, as he tried to apologise for whatever he did wrong. But the words wouldn't come out.

Pain racked his body, his arms were bruised trying to protect his head, tears streamed from his eyes as his small frame was being beaten.

As his mind was losing consciousness he heard what could only be described as a loud screech.

"_What the fuck are you doing?"_

-()-

It had been a very annoying six months for the woman walking through the forest, she had landed in a port that she didn't know the name of to find that they spoke a language that she didn't know and now she had been traveling through the continent seeing if there was anything interesting.

'_Thank whatever deity that is up there that people will accept gold as any form of currency'_ Though she wasn't too sure if she was being over charged or under charged when she landed at the port.

It had taken her four months to learn the language in any reasonable way to try and understand the people of this land, and even then both she and they had to talk slowly.

The most frustrating part for her was when she found out that the entire continent works off of some type of mercenary system. From what she could piece together was that if people had problems they went to one of the groups for help.

The reason it frustrated her so much was that it made it really difficult to try and find jobs add in the language barrier and it had been next to impossible. Though she had managed to find some work nothing to serious enough to help cover some bills and pick up a few new tools.

However, she had managed to get something far more important that will help with her the next time she comes back to this land.

She was broken from her musings as she heard a loud shout coming from within the forest, curious by nature she decided to take a look at what had caused it. As she walked through the floral path towards the sound she noticed blood on some of the leaves.

'_Huh guess either someone is being overly friendly or I might get a new job'_ she was hoping for the latter. Not that either really mattered in the end, she lived life the way she wanted to or everyone else be damned if they had to.

As she moved through the forest she came upon an odd sight four people were beating on a fifth person that was on the ground. The scene wasn't that bizarre she had seen similar things happen. She was about to call out to get their attention, offer some help to the one on the ground people were generous when they were desperate.

Before she called out she caught a glimpse of the person, upon seeing the target of the hostility her mind froze. _'It's a child'_ was the first thing that came to her thoughts. An unbending storm of anger swelled up inside her at the sight.

She would never call herself a good person, she lived in a world of grey but there was one thing she believed in above all else. In a world of grey each individual has to draw their own line of what they would and would not do. And for her it was one thing, Children are off limits.

Witch all of her anger she shouted at the group "What the Fuck do you think you're doing?" the roar was primal instinct. And four pairs of eyes turned to look at her. She took measure of each of them in that moment.

The first was a rather broad man wearing simple white shirt, dark trousers and a pain of sandals. He had brown hair and looked rather unkempt. _'Broad, possibly from menial labour, possibly weak core.'_

The second was a more slender man rather tall by comparison to the group. He wore a dark green jacket with a navy undershirt and brown trousers. He had dark black hair. _'Slim, kind of lanky. Might be wiry strong hard to tell.' _

The third was a woman with a rough looking tunic shirt, and grey trousers. She had long brown hair tied into a pony tail. _'Looks like a housewife.'_

If she had of been in the mood to make comments of those in front of her she would of said that the three of them didn't look that special. However her attention moved to the fourth member of this motley crew.

He wore all dark clothes with a dark green flak jacket, but the part that really stood out to her was the metal plate attached to a headband. This wasn't the first time that she had seen a similar item _'It's one of the mercenaries, take him out first.'_

It was the woman who decided to speak first, _"What did you say?"_ The wording sounded almost inquisitive as if she couldn't understand why someone was talking to them.

While she may not have properly understood the words in her rage induced mind she could defiantly understand the tone. Trying to calm herself down she tried to speak in there dialect. _'What Fuck you do?'_ She tried to sound as calm as possible as she inched closer to them, she would be the first to admit that she probably sounded far from calm.

The four people looked quizzically between each other as they took in the appearance of the strange woman in front of them, the female decided to speak again, _"Where killing the demon."_ She once again spoke in that same tone, as if it was as plain as day.

Now there will be times when wires get crossed when it comes to trying to understand another language and sometimes tone of voice is very important. This however was not one of those instances. Out of the four words spoken she understood only two of them. _'Where killing'_ the anger that she was feeling suddenly came back in full force, it was made worse by the woman's tone of voice. There was a lull in the air that was suddenly broken by the sounds of soft whimpering.

She noticed that the child had managed to turn himself around, to see if it was finally safe. She looked at the boy on the ground, he was covered in dirt and blood, his nose looked to have been broken, and his cloths were dirty, torn and bloody. His eyes were red and puffy with streaks of tears rolling down his whiskered cheeks. She could see the fear in him and the little bit of hope.

None of the four were prepared for what came next.

-()-

All that he could do from his position was look on at the turn of events, the people who had been hurting him had finally stopped he was able. It had taken all of his effort to turn around to see the new comer.

She was an average height woman, with dirty blonde hair tied into a pony tail, her face had hard features with what looked like some light scars. She wore a brown leather duster with the sleeves rolled up exposing her forearms. She wore a white undershirt and a pair dark brown trousers with a yellow band wrapped around the waist.

When he met her eyes he could see anger in them. For a moment he could only hope that she was going to make them stop. He wasn't able to properly understand what they were talking about. He however did hear one thing _'There going to kill me' _fresh tears started to fall from his eyes as the thoughts went through head. It hurt too much to move.

It all happened very suddenly, he didn't have time to properly register what he had seen. When he thought of being like one of the ninjas in the village he always thought that fights were going to be long drawn out battles where each participant would throw cool jutsu at each other until one finally came out on top.

What happened was completely different, the woman moved forward, the ninja had moved to the left in an attempt to throw something a kunai or shuriken maybe. There was suddenly something warm splashing on the boy's face.

As a scream left the ninjas mouth the woman pivoted on her right foot and turned towards the broad. Placing a strong backhand in the man's stomach he bent over with the force of the blow, she proceeded to shove a knife in the back of the man's neck.

Continuing her momentum she pulled the knife from his neck throwing it at the woman, there was a loud thump as the knife hit the woman in the head. Blade sliding in.

There was a brief lull in combat as the woman took in her soundings before shooting off towards the tall man, woman's knee shot up catching the man between the legs, as his body began to crumble forward her right hand hit him in the throat.

Spinning 180 degrees she brought up her left hand revealing a small hand crossbow that she fired at the Ninja with a missing arm.

The boy was both marvelled by the spectacle of how the woman fought and terrified that she would suddenly turn and kill him as well. Closing his eyes he tried to will himself to stop crying. Time seemed to stand still.

He felt himself be pulled onto his back so he was lying flat on the ground, scrunching his eyes closed he waited trying to calm his whimpering body. He felt something damp rub at his face and his eyes shot open.

"It… okay" the woman voices was rather soft, stark contrast to her appearance. He could see her gently try and wipe the blood off his face. "Are… you… hurt?" she was talking slowly as if testing each word before she actually said it. All that he could do was nod his head, too afraid to actually speak.

Upon seeing his nod she pulled out a small knife, the boy flinched away and tried with all his might to scamper back. "I… won't… hurt you. I… helping you." She made gentle soothing sounds as she stoked his hair trying to calm him down.

-()-

As the little boy started to calm down she started to cut open his t-shirt, _'I can replace it later first things first injuries.'_ Looking at the now exposed torso she took a good look at the damage. _'Fuck. There's some severe bruising on his chest and possibly a broken rib or two'_ if she hadn't just killed the people doing the attack she probably would of taken the time to castrate them all nice and slowly.

Looking over some of his other injuries she couldn't stop that all-consuming rage from building. _'He's got two broken forearms and small knife wounds.'_ She noticed him flinch as a pained cry left his body. Trying to bring her anger under control she put on her biggest smile and looked at him

"_It will… be fine… have you… patch in no time"_ She tried to sound as nice and sincere as possible to the small child, _'How the fuck are you still conscious kid. I've seen grown men pass out from less than this'_ Opening up her coat she looked at the pockets lining the inside of it, _'Where did I put that first aid kit.'_ After thinking for a moment she reached into one of the pockets and produced a first aid kit.

"_Tell me… about you, while I patch"_ she tried to speak to the kid in his language since she was certain that he wouldn't be able to understand her.

"_My name is… "She_ could hear the strain in his voice _'There is a cracked rib at least but the lung isn't punctured. Thank god for small miracles.'_ "Naruto Uzumaki."

She couldn't help but smile genuinely when she watched his little lips tug up when he said his name, _'He has so much pride in his name.' "My name… is Clara." _ She set about cleaning the wounds that were on his body before bandaging them. _"Where… parents?" 'Damn it I wish this was easier'_ she noticed that the small smile disappeared at that, she didn't need to be told what was coming next.

"_I don't have any. I am an orphan"_ the words were hard to get out, whether he didn't like talking about it or the pain made it difficult she wasn't sure.

Taking the roll of bandages she positioned them near the boy's mouth, "_Bite down… need to reset arms."_ Nodding slowly the Naruto took a bite of the bandages and waited. Clara wasted no time in grabbing his forearm to realign it, before quickly moving on to the next. Naruto screamed in agony as the bones were forcefully realigned. Reaching into one of her pockets she pulled out a rather long stick. _'And they said that I would never have a need for this thing.'_ Clara thought proudly to herself.

"_Do you have a home"_ She asked him while slowly making a brace for his arms, she watched as he shook his head slowly in the negative. _'It'll have to do until I get him somewhere with an actual doctor or healer.'_ Taking the bandages out of his mouth she threw them back into the box.

She could see that his little blue eyes were getting heavy the exhaustion finally catching up with him. It didn't take long for him to fall unconscious.

Looking over her handy work Clara removed her duster and wrapped the Naruto before lifting him up. "Guess you finally passed out huh. You're a tough little bastard that's for sure." She felt a smile tug at her lips as she looked at the young boy. Memories of a foregone time playing through her mind.

"Well I guess it's time to figure out what to do you with you" she spoke to no one in particular the clearing only two people were alive and one of them were conscious. Looking at the people she had just killed she started to think aloud.

"If the mercenary is from one of those villages it might be nearby. I don't think it is wise to bring you back there, though I am not quite sure where there is." Looking around the forest she came to her decision. "Well I guess it's back the way I came."

-()-

A.N

There is not much to say I got this stuck in my head and don't know if it is actually any good but I am going to give it a shot and hopefully some of you people enjoy it.

Everything that happened will be explained at a later point in the story.

If you have any problems let me know I will try to improve it for the next chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

I

-()-

Clara set in the small hotel room waiting for the young boy to wake up, _'It's been five days how much sleep does the little brat need.'_ It had been annoying tracking back to find somewhere with a doctor to heal the boy. She had hadn't realised just how few healers there actually were in these lands. In her homeland there was always a healer of some kind, not necessarily a good healer but there was usually something.

However, within the continent she was on there was nothing like that, doctors were rare in the small villages; she had to pass through two of the smaller villages until she found a decent sized town. The only time she had stopped carrying him was so she had to change his bandages. The only thing she was thankful for that he didn't have a collapsed lung or he wouldn't have lasted as long as he did.

When she had finally found someone that could heal him it was an effort in patience trying to get them to help.

-(_Flash Back_)-

_Walking into the large town with the small bundle in her arms Clara set about looking for someone that would be able to heal the boy, every town that she had come to so far had nothing, no doctor, no healer, not even some weird voodoo specialist._

_Part of her regretted not continuing on to the possible mercenary village, but she knew that if one of them attempted something on the boy, there would probably be others. You could call her paranoid but she hadn't survived this long by ignoring her gut._

_The town was rather large with buildings made out of stone, it seemed like a major trading point if she had to judge. Considering the vendors and that many roads led to the town. Five entrances is a nightmare to guard but it makes sense for a trade location._

_Walking through the town she realised that the fatigue was catching up to her, she would need to properly rest soon or she would most likely pass out. In addition, if she were to pass out no one would be able to help the boy. He had been asleep for the journey but every so often, she would hear a small whimper coming from the coat that she had wrapped him in. The worst though was when she had to change his bandages._

'_Just one step in front of the other, you will find someone, just one more step' she would succeed it was a simple fact to her; she would succeed because she had to. There was no other reason, and no doubt in her mind. _

_Making her way towards one of the shops, she hoped that she would be able to find someone in the town; entering the small building, she noted that it was a general store; it seemed only to have two occupants at this time. One was the man behind the counter was a medium height brown haired man wearing rather plain looking clothes, the other was a girl about 13 or 14 with brown hair in a bob cut. She decided to try her luck and approach the man, carefully shifting the bundle in her arm to give access to the sword she belted to her side. With her coat being used by Naruto she needed to keep a weapon on her in case of trouble. _

"_Excuse... me... sir, a... healer in... town?" thinking it over there may have been someone to help the boy if she could properly articulate her questions._

_The man took one look at her and said quite simply "I don't know who you are but I don't want no trouble just leave. Or I'll call the guards."_

_It took a second for his words to sink in _"What do you mean trouble I just need a Fucking healer. How the fuck can you deny someone a healer..." _taking a deep breath Clara tried to calm herself down, she noticed that the girl seem to be cowering back at her outburst._

"_I need... doctor... I've wounded... boy... Please" she had no problem being nice to someone that deserved it but she shouldn't have to grate out the word for someone to help a child. Although this town was the first time, she was met with this type of reaction. She would have wondered was it how she looked or that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to run around with a sword on her hip._

"_I know someone who can help." The voice was soft and sounded nearly like a mouse, Clara turned to see the girl that she had previously scared. _

"_Excuse me?" She didn't know whether to hold her breath or jump with glee, though jumping with the Naruto in her arms would have been a bad idea. _

"_I... I know someone who might be able to... to help" she was ringing her hands on the front of her clothes with her head hung low. _

"_Please... bring me... to them" Clara had to contain herself the girl looked positively frightened and this was the first bit of good news she had heard in a while._

_The girl nodded her head and led her out of the store. She followed the girl until she came to what looked like some place of where people gambled though she wasn't quite sure what game they were playing. 'She better not be leading me somewhere dumb...' _

"_Tsunade-Sama, Tsunade-Sama, there is someone here who needs your help" the girl ran up to a woman with long blonde hair tied in two pigtails with some form of coat that with writing on the back of it. She wasn't sure what it said._

"_Shizune you should not talk to strangers" the woman known as Tsunade said, the girl Shizune hung her head at the words. "But... But she needs a doctor"_

_Clara watched as the woman turned to take in her appearance, she couldn't help but find herself enraptured by the woman's appearance smooth pale skin, beautiful eyes of a hazel shade, cute button nose, soft pink lips and a green jewel on the top of her forehead. She was positively one of the prettiest women she had met. It helped that her low cut top showed off her sizable assets, 'Sweet mother of the almighty and any other divine that was involved there fucking huge." The sudden whimper from her coat brought her mind back to reality, with a firm face she set about her task._

"_Are you... Doctor?" she asked with steel in her eyes, she could admire later now she had a job to complete._

"_I don't do that anymore," she said before turning back to the machine in front of her. Shizune just looked between the two women._

'_Don't do that anymore? What type of bullshit' that didn't make sense to her, a healer is always a healer. She had seen people of the faith loose there's and still heal because it is what they do. A killer who wants out is one thing but someone who has taken an oath to help cannot abandon it. _

"_Can you... help him?" Clara asks she was trying to hold her animosity in, she moves the bundle so that is in her left arm._

"_No" she doesn't even turn around, as she speaks._

_Now if it hadn't of been for the fact that the last place she was in had treated her with hostile actions then she may of left and tried to find someone else. If she maybe had have found something even remotely useful on her way here she may have continued without a problem. Ultimately, it had been that soft whimper of pain. That had determined her next course of action._

_Balling her fist in anger, she threw a punch directly at the machine that Tsunade had been using. "Help Him!"She shouted in a harsh voice _ "or by my blades you will not know rest. By my hands you will know suffering and by my will you will lose your life"_ Her eyes were trying to bore a hole through the woman's skull. She noticed that the little girl had shrunk back again looking terrified._

_Tsunade had a shocked look at the words that had been spoken, which quickly turned to a sneer as she prepared to get up. Her train of thoughts were suddenly broken when the sound of a child's whimpers reached her ears. Looking at the blonde-haired woman in front of her she finally noticed the bundle in her arm. A bundle that seemed to be whimpering. The woman's words started to sink in, the words that she understood. 'Are you a doctor? Help him, help him.' The two words started to repeat themselves in her head 'Help him, help him, help him.' _

_She reached out with a shaky hand towards the coat upon moving the coat she had wished that she had just got up and left. She was looking at a small unconscious blonde boy with bandages on his head and chest, he wasn't wearing a shirt and his green shorts were torn. He had bandages around his legs as well. With two homemade splints on his arms indicating that his forearms were broke. Every breath that he took seemed to be causing him pain. And the soft whimpers were leaving him at irregular intervals. _

_Part of her wanted to just leave, but could she really leave a child in that much pain. The answer came to her slower then she would have liked, she knew that it shouldn't take this long to come to a simple conclusion and yet her mind still pondered a way to get out of it. But she couldn't, she couldn't leave a child like that. Standing up she said looked at the woman. "Follow me" she nearly missed the look of fury on the woman's face turn to that of jubilation at her words._

_It didn't take long to get to her room where she proceeded to try and do her best to help the child, though there was a lot more damage than she had expected. She was surprised that the boy was still alive. She worked all through the night to try to do something for him using what supplies she had as well as what Clara had on her. All she could do was wait until he woke up. _

-(Flash Back end)-

And so we find Clara still sitting in the room waiting for her recent charge to wake up, she was trying to ponder over what to do with the boy. She could leave him at an orphanage in one of the villages, but then he would just be that an orphan hoping to be adopted one day. And she didn't believe that many of the orphanages in this continent would be able to help him. Very few in her own continent did, it was more if you were lucky to wind up in one of them where you have a chance at getting an education. He would either grow up and try and become a mercenary for one of the villages or enlist and serve the country. They were the two most likely scenarios.

She could take him back to his own home, where he would likely wind up in the same state that he did before if not worse. Then all the effort to keep him alive would be for not. To die a dogs death in your own home was no way for a child to live.

The last option would be to take him with her, but that posed a problem in its self. Would he want to come with her, would he be able to survive with her? What could she do to help him? Memories of a blonde haired girl came to mind, lifeless eyes staring up at her. Another life that she failed.

Shaking her head from unneeded thoughts, she tried to focus on what was in front of her. _'Only if he wants to learn how to fight will I take him.'_ Though she knew that she couldn't just ask him, asking the question outright will have an answer but it may not be the one that he truly wants.

'_What is it you seek'_ the words asked to her so long ago, if she could meet her younger self she would probably slap her for the answer she gave. But wasn't that life, making choices and living with the consequences.

She heard the sound of rustling coming from the bed, _'looks like he is finally waking up, Tsunade should be getting back soon anyway'_ she didn't know what to think of the woman, she was thankful that she had helped heal him. Especially when she found out that, his wounds were much more severe then what she thought. She could only put believe that he was still alive down to the fact that he had a will to live. _'A will to live is a very good characteristic to have. You can go far by just wanting to live.'_ She mused to herself.

Shizune on the other hand seemed to be broken up at the sight of Naruto, the thought of a child being that badly injured seemed to shake her. Clara felt bad that the girl had been in the room when Tsunade had went told her about all of the injuries.

The talk with Tsunade about the Naruto wasn't easy.

-(flash back)-

_It had been six hours since they came to the hotel room, Clara set in the seat by the bed. It wasn't that she didn't trust the woman, needless to say she didn't but that wasn't the point. No she set by the bed in the off chance that Naruto woke up, he would most likely be scared and disoriented, and it would not do well to have no one beside the boy. _

_Once Tsunade had finished with the long work of trying to fix the internal injuries she finally had a chance to ask some of the questions that had been plaguing her mind for the better part of six hours._

"_Who is he and what happened to him?" she decided to not beat around the bush._

_Clara looked at the woman in front of her weighing up what she should say, truth be told there wasn't much too actually hide. She knew his name and she knew what happened to him. She didn't know anything else. However, he was an orphan by his own admittance so it wasn't as if his name was overly important. With that thought, she decided to say what she knew._

"_His name... Naruto Uzumaki" she hadn't been expecting any response, she had seen Tsunade adapt quite quickly to her accent and broken speech. Therefore, she was surprised when she saw a slight widening in the woman's eyes. That set off a warning in her head._

"_And what happened to him?" her voice was calm analytical the composure of a perfect doctor. _

"_Not obvious... Not like... fell down some stairs" Clara spoke in a more aloof manner; the woman in front of her knew something, what she didn't know. She knew that there was every possibility that it was nothing of important, but information was power and if this woman had information that was even slightly relevant as to what had happened then she would find it out._

_Tsunade narrowed her eyes at the woman sitting by the bed, after all the hassle she had made in order to try and get help to suddenly appear as if she doesn't care meant that she was up to something. Before she pressed on with that she had another question that she wanted answered._

"_What were you saying earlier, what language was it even in?" she had travelled around quite a bit in her time away from the village and she had never heard anything like this woman had said, she had never even heard an accent like hers before._

"_What?" _

"_You know what, that _b...y ha...d n...o rs...t_" even the words felt weird coming from her mouth. _

"_Why... you care?" Clara let her speak her questions she needed time to properly word her own._

_Tsunade had to think about it, why did she care? There were two main reasons why she wanted to know, firstly was she was curious about the language itself she had never heard it before and wondered what part of the elemental nations used it. The second was one she was less proud of, when the woman had spoken the words she had felt terror and as if something was weighing upon her shoulders. _

"_I've never heard that language before, what part of the elemental nations is it from." Tsunade tried to keep her voice calm. This woman had peeked her intrigue._

_Clara saw her chance to get some answers, "What… so shocking about… name Naruto Uzumaki?" the question came out as if she was asking. How's the weather?_

_The question shocked Tsunade, she didn't know why the Clara was asking her about Naruto._

"_I don't know what you're talking about I just met the boy."_

_Taking a moment to think over her words she came to only one conclusion, 'doesn't know him, but maybe his last name?' "Well I come from up North"_

"_No one up in Kaminari no Kuni speaks that language" her eye was twitching._

"_Then… why don't… tell me what… special about… Uzumaki?" asked Clara._

_It wasn't hard to figure out what Clara was doing. "It's a dead clan name, there are very few of them left I didn't expect to see a boy who doesn't look like an Uzumaki using that name." It was a half-truth, they were a dead clan and there were very few of them left in the world, but she did know of one that would in theory be around this boy's age. So that begged the question why would a citizen of Konoha be with a foreign woman and being nearly beaten to death. _

_Clara pondered the information she had just heard, it took a bit of time to let it all sink in. "What… mean by Clan?" That was the weirdest part, in her lands a clan was a term for a group that were under one banner, there were multiple names to describe them but the two main ones were clan and guild. She herself had been once part of different clans and guilds, but you didn't take the name of the clan as a name._

_That question left Tsunade stumped, if she needed proof that the woman in front of her wasn't from these lands then that was it. Even the most backward village in the Elemental Nations knew what a clan was. It was a part of their history. "Where are you from?" She didn't like playing games._

"_Across… the sea… Continent called Camlain… so what a Clan?" The information she gave was unimportant, even if the woman was able to use it she was nearly certain that none had travelled the sea as far as her. Not threw lack of trying mind you._

"_A Clan is a family of sorts, usually they have something special or unique, but really any big enough family can gain clan status. It's just usually easier if you have something to offer. All clans are now associated with one hidden village or another." Tsunade wouldn't lie, she was intrigued by the woman; only the foolish believed that the Elemental Nations were the be all and end all of the world. But to her knowledge none had ever come from across the seas and none had made the journey, and if they had they didn't make a return trip. It made sense, the clothes, the accent and the unknown dialect._

"_So clan… is important. Where did… Uzumaki come from?" Clara was trying to make sense of the information she was getting. If Clans were important and they belong to someplace then the boy might have been attacked because of it._

"_Originally, Uzushiogakure but it was destroyed years ago. The last one I knew lived in Konoha but she died f…" she had been so interested in trying to find out more about the woman and the land she came from she hadn't realised what she nearly let slip. The only thing that she could hope for is that if the boy is who she thinks he is that she wouldn't realise the slip._

_Tsunade was hiding something from her, she didn't know what, it was hard to tell but it had something to do with Naruto. She could badger but there was one more thing that she wanted to know. "Is Konoha… one… hidden village… and if so… what symbol." She wasn't sure of what answer she wanted, she didn't know what would be the best answer to receive, so she just waited._

_Tsunade didn't know what to do she had no love for the village after everything that had happened to her, and the more the conversation went on the more certain she was of what had happened. She decided to answer truthfully. "It is a hidden village" walking over to the desk she lifted a pen and paper before she started to draw on it. Upon finishing she handed the page to Clara._

_Looking at the paper in her hands she clenched her fist around the stencilled image of a leaf. It was the same symbol as what the mercenary she killed was wearing. _

_After that all conversation stopped. _

-(flashback end)-

Clara watched as Naruto started to stir, she was wondering how he would react. She sat patiently waiting for him to waken.

-()-

Slowly blue eyes drifted open to see a rather plain looking grey ceiling. What surprised him though was that it wasn't either his ceiling or the usual white of a hospital. _'Where… Where am I?'_ He tried to orientate his thoughts but it was hard.

He couldn't help the creeping fear he didn't know where he was, how he got there or how he was alive. He tried to think back to what had happened, it was hazy he couldn't remember much, he did remember that he was afraid. Terrified even.

He tried to move but he was stiff, how long had he been asleep. Sitting up he noticed that his hands were heavily bandaged, fear gripped his heart. _'What's happening?'_ he could feel the sting in his eyes as he tried to will the tears to stay back. Turning his head to try to see the room more he suddenly saw a woman with dirty blonde hair sitting patiently near the bed.

His heart leapt into his throat at the sight of her, _'why is she here, who is she?'_ with a shaky voice he tried to speak to her.

"Wh… who a… are you?" Naruto stuttered out. He didn't know why the woman seemed familiar.

"Don't worry… Naruto you… safe" she spoke in soothing tone. Naruto's eyes widened when she said his name.

"How do you know me? Where am I? Who are you? Why am I here?" he was rushing through his questions, he wasn't paying attention to the puzzled look on her face.

"Calm down… speak… slowly… I will… answer if… I can" she raised her hands in an attempt to placate him.

When the woman raised her hand Naruto seen the sword belted to her side. Upon seeing it he tried to scoot himself further back in the bed, hoping the woman wouldn't attack him.

"Don't worry… you… safe... won't hurt you." She still spoke to him in that calm voice, he tried to right himself. He tried to wipe the tears away from his eyes, he didn't know why he was here he just wanted to be back in his little cardboard box. His arms started to hurt he couldn't raise them. As the feeling of helplessness took over he couldn't stop as more tears fell from his eyes. _'Just go away, just leave me alone, please, please, please'_ He recited it over in his mind trying to lower his head far enough that the woman in the room would leave him alone.

Naruto was suddenly shifted from his thought as he felt the bed shift slightly he turned his head to the side to see the woman sitting beside him.

"It okay… you safe here." She smiled down at him, "My name is Clara… you not… need be afraid" she spoke as she wiped the tears from his eyes.

As Naruto took a good look at the woman he noticed that she had light scarring around her face, she was rather tanned with grey eyes. He couldn't help the feeling that he knew her for some reason.

"Want to… see… magic trick" she brought her closed hand up to her mouth before blowing into it. Then extending her arm she whispered _"Ast"_ suddenly a small ball of fire appeared in her hand, she held it there for a few seconds before letting it faded away.

Naruto could feel his eyes widen to the size of dinner plates at what we just witnessed. "Ho… How?" he all but whispered out.

"Sshh" she said soothingly "It's a kind of magic" Naruto couldn't help the grin that came to his face when she said that.

"Do you… remember… what happened?" she asked quietly.

Naruto looked at the woman trying to think back to the last thing he did remember, he had been on the ground trying to cover himself, there was blinding pain, and a blurry face.

"Not really… they were hurting me but I don't remember much" he lowered his head in concentration trying to find out why the woman seemed so familiar to him. He started looking around the room until his eyes came to rest on a leather duster.

He couldn't help but feel hopeful when he seen it, he didn't know why, he knew he had seen a similar coat before. Getting out of his feet scurried across the floor to try and get him to the coat as fast as he could. He didn't know why but there was something familiar about the coat. Upon reaching it he tried to lift it, only that his bandaged arms were causing him pain. When he realised that it wasn't going to happen he lowered his head.

He felt a sudden wait on his shoulders and looked up to see Clara standing over him and the coat no longer on the chair. A face splitting grin appeared on him as he scampered over to the mirror.

The coat was huge on him and trailed along the floor, as he got to the mirror he seen that it covered him completely. "Do you… remember that… coat?" Clara was holding in a chuckle at the boys antics.

Nodding his head he turned around and went back to sit on the bed, a small satisfied grin on his lips. After managing to get himself back onto the bed, through no small amount of effort as the coat threatened to fall off him and he couldn't use his arms to right himself.

"I remember someone wearing a coat like this. I think that they helped me" even though the coat was big and set awkwardly on him he felt safe.

Clara stood looking at him waiting to see if he would be able to put it together, after two minutes she looked at him to see a confused look on his face. _'He can't still be thinking over it can he.'_

"Um do you know who owns this coat?" he asked, his head tilted to the side in thought. Clara didn't know whether to sigh at question or laugh. She settled for shaking her head.

"My… coat, to answer… next question, yes… I… the one… helped you."

Naruto looked at the woman again trying to place her face. When he finally realised that she was the other person there he let out a loud shout. "Eh that was you!" he tried to point his arm but let out a loud shout as he hurt himself trying to raise it.

Clara couldn't hold in the laughter at his response, after she settled down the room became quiet.

Both occupants were trying to think over what there next question was going to be. Clara wanted to find out what she should do next with little Naruto. And Naruto trying to find the best way to ask his own question.

Being a very blunt and direct child Naruto took the plunge "Can you teach me to fight?"

Let it never be said that Naruto Uzumaki knew anything about tact.

A.N

Hope you enjoyed feel free to give any feedback, constructive criticism can only help in the long run.


	3. Chapter 3

Clara was rather surprised by the blonde's sudden statement, she had wanted to try and get an answer from him on what he wanted to do. As she looked into his eyes she could see the fire they held. It may have been a spur of the moment decision for him but he seemed to have full intention of following through with it.

There was really only one question that she wanted an answer to before she would consider training the boy. _ "Why do you seek power"_ she realised quickly that the boy wouldn't understand "Why… seek… power?" she kept her voice calm and emotionless. The sudden tone change seemed to surprise Naruto.

He tilted his head and scrunched his eyes in concentration, as if he was looking for the perfect words. Clara couldn't help but think that the little child was adorable. Though he seemed a bit slow, she could see him trying to fold his arms and only causing himself pain.

"I… I don't… I don't want to be that helpa… helpla… helpless! I don't want to be that helpless again" after a bit of stumbling he finally got the words out.

Clara thought about his reason and mulled it over in her own head, there was no set answer to the question. It was asked by a master who would take a student on as an apprentice. Just as Riley had done for her. The decision was based on the master if they accepted that reason.

Clara mulled over the boys words for a moment before nodding to herself, there was nothing wrong with not wanting to feel powerless and helpless.

"Okay" she watched as her words sunk in to the boy and how his face burst into a huge grin.

"Yea! I'm going to be awesome dattebayo." The enthusiasm was nearly palpable.

'_What the hell is a thatbayo'_ she was confused by his sudden outburst.

-()-

Naruto was buzzing with excitement someone was going to teach him. "So what are we going to do first Clara-Sensei?"

She looked at him quizzically, "Just Clara" she started to rub the bottom of her chin as if she was in deep thought. "First you… have to pass… survival test, before that your arms need to heal. Will take about six months to get there… I'll teach you something on the journey."

"Throw whatever you want at me I'll survive it. Dattebayo!" he had never smiled this much and truly meant it.

"Alright… let's get… something eat. What… you want?" Clara was unprepared for what came next.

"RAMEN!" Naruto shot up from the bed and scurried as fast as he could to get by Clara side, if he was able to he would have grabbed her hand to try and drag her out of the room.

The door suddenly burst open to show Tsunade, her right eye was twitching. "And what do you think you're doing, you can't leave the room…" she trailed off as she saw Naruto standing beside Clara with a big grin on his face and his entire body being swallowed by the woman's coat.

The sudden silence was broken by the sound of giggling coming from behind Tsunade, Shizune moved into the room to stand in front of Naruto. "Ah he's so cute" she threw her arms around the blonde, "Can we keep him Tsunade-Sama, can we, can we?"

Clara chuckled at her soon to be student, she watched as Tsunade stalked towards the children before separating Shizune from Naruto. "You!" she said pointing at Naruto, "Bed now."

"Awww but Ramen" once again Clara was unprepared for what was about to happen, she could only watch as Naruto's big blue eyes managed to become slightly wider, his lower lip seemed to be quivering. When Shizune saw this she turned to Tsunade and started doing the same.

'_What in the divines thrice damned blessing are they doing'_ Clara was confused and a little worried they were staring at Tsunade with those eyes and she wanted just to take them to get Ramen. However she was holding up to it she had no idea, the woman most have an unbreakable will, "Fine we will get Ramen and then you go back to bed."

She watched as Naruto ran out of the room, "How long till… he realises… can't use his arms… also does… know where… even serves Ramen"

"If the front door is closed he will realise, if not then by the time he finds someplace with Ramen. And he will find it, I bet the brat is like a blood hound for sniffing that sort of stuff out." Tsunade said, memories of a young redheaded girl bringing a small smile to her lips.

Clara raised an eyebrow at the woman's words, this wasn't the first time she spoke as if she knew him.

"Well… let us… get him."

It didn't take long to find Naruto, he was nearly at a small stand that actually sold ramen to Clara's amusement. Finding him wasn't hard, all they had to do was look for the blonde kid in an oversized coat.

"You do realise he is probably ruining the bottom of that coat?" Tsunade said to her.

"If… cared about… coat getting dirty… wouldn't ware it" was Clara's response. It was true why worry about some dirt getting on her coat when there was every chance of it getting torn and bloody from fighting.

She watched as Shizune ran to pick the blonde up and place him on a stool, there was a slight glaze to his eyes as he was sitting in the Ramen stand.

"Hey Lady Can I have" he tried to raise his arm to show his fingers. Feeling slightly dejected he turned his head to Shizune. "Nee-Chan can you lift my arm up please."

Clara walked up behind the pair as Shizune raised Naruto's arm. Showing four fingers "three bowels of miso ramen" Shizune giggled at the boy's antics.

The ragtag group set at the stand, upon the first bowel arriving that Naruto finally realised his major problem. His head hit the table as tears streamed down his face.

"What's wrong Naru-chan?" Shizune asked with concern.

"Why have you forsaken me, you give me your blessing and yet deny me the ability to partake in your glory. Have I done you wrong, ask of me and I will make it right." Everyone stared at the boy.

"What… wrong boy" Clara asked she was extremely confused about his sudden bout of depression.

"I… I… "He was sniffing back tears as he tried to speak, "I can't eat the Gods' gift without my hands."

Everyone in the stand had a different reaction to the child's outburst, the serving Lady just looked at the boy with wide eyes, Tsunade rubbed her temples at the boy's words her only thought was _'if I needed proof he was her son that was it right there.'_

Clara thought to use a time honoured tradition from her own land, raising her arm to a ninety degree angle with the palm of her hand being six inches from her nose, she slowly lowered her forehead to rest on the palm before dragging the hand down her face.

Shizune however quickly lifted the boy into her lap before positioning his bowel in front of him. "Don't worry Naru-chan I'll help you."

The atmosphere in the stand completely changed as Naruto smiled brightly at Shizune "Thanks Nee-Chan!"

Clara realised her own problem soon enough though, "Naruto… turn round" as she turned around to see Naruto looking at her quizzically _'how did you manage to make a mess of yourself while being fed?' _She decided to push her thoughts to the side in order to complete her new task.

Reaching over she opened up her coat and looked at the different pockets, _I think it's the top right_' reaching into the pocket she found the items that she was looking for. First she pulled out a metal fork and small metal flask. Smiling she turned to her food and started eating.

Naruto went back to being fed while Shizune tried to alternate between eating her own food and helping Naruto with his.

Tsunade looked at the piece of metal in Clara's hands as if it was the strangest thing in the world, add that to the metal container that was now sitting beside her meal. "What are they?"

"Fork and Flask" Clara said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"What are they for?" Tsunade had never seen either of the items that she had mentioned before, she wondered if this stuff was from a foreign country.

"Eat with… fork, drink… from flask" she said as she unscrewed the lid of the flask before taking a large swig. Holding the flask to Tsunade she said "want some? It… good."

Taking the flask from the woman she took a drink not expecting the warm sensation going down her throat. She let the taste mingle on her mouth for a second noticing a slight spiciness to it. It was no sake but it was good.

"How long till… he travel?" Clara asked, she wasn't hounded for time, but it was going to take a year before the survival test was over.

Tsunade looked at her food trying to think of what to say, she decided to get some answers before she said anything. "What are you going to do with him?" might as well get straight to the point.

"He want… training… I give it… if pass test" Clara said as she took another sip from her flask.

"And if he doesn't pass?" she was curious about what type of test she would give a four year old.

"Won't get training, find… somewhere for him to live… Maybe find someone else… to train him." It was as simple as that, if he didn't pass the test she wasn't going to train him. She didn't doubt though that he would be able to pass.

"And what if he doesn't like the training?" Tsunade knew that she shouldn't care what happens to the blonde but she couldn't help it.

"Has year to quit… after that no opt out… till complete. Simple." Clara nodded her head with her words as if they were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Will you be taking him home?" She didn't know why she asked, it had been years since he had been in the village, she didn't really care that much. Though the idea that a Ninja of the village helped cause the boy's injuries sickened her.

"If he wants… not till after… teaching though. And he make decision… not me… not anyone… his choice… important for him." She spoke with determination as she said the last sentence.

Tsunade nodded her head along with Clara's words, "I'll check him out when we get back to the room. Though he heals fast, faster than normal."

Clara tucked that little piece of information away.

She turned to look at her soon to be apprentice, her eyes widened at the stack of bowels beside the two children. Shizune had a shocked look on her face as Naruto was sleeping in her lap. "He eat… that?" she asked while pointing at the pile. When Shizune nodded her head Clara looked between Naruto and the pile trying to figure out a question that will stump her for years to come. _"Where the fuck does he put it all?"_ Everyone else in the stand looked at her trying to figure out what she said.

After paying for the meal they made their way back to the hotel room where Tsunade performed her check up on Naruto. After five minutes she turned to Clara, "He should be fit for travel in a few days, judging by the rate at which he heals I would say he will have full functionality in his arms in a day or two. It will be tender and he will have to go through some exercises to help. Even rapid healing doesn't completely do away with atrophy."

Clara nodded her head and filled away the last piece of information.

-()-

It was three days later when Clara and Naruto where about to head out from the town, the two were preparing to leave from the North gate, and where being seen off by both Tsunade and Shizune.

Clara was dressed in her usual clothes, Naruto had been sad that he wasn't able to wear her coat. Shizune had taken Naruto to get some new clothes in for his trip, after playing dress up on the boy, she had tried to pick out something that would make him look dashing. She soon learned that clothes shopping with a four year old was an exercise in futility.

By the time they were done Naruto was wearing an orange jacket, black t shirt and dark green trousers. He had also gotten a black jacket, two orange t shirts, two black t shirts, two white t shirts, a pair of green shorts and one extra pair of dark trousers. She had drawn the line at orange trousers as well. He had managed to convince her to get him a pair of goggles that he took to wearing on his forehead.

"Bye Nee-chan, bye Baa-chan, thanks for all the help!" Naruto shouted as he gave each respective person a hug. Though he did have to move away from Tsunade before he got hit in the head for his efforts.

The woman and girl watched as the pair left, both having mixed feelings about seeing them leave, for Shizune it was because she liked Naruto, even with all that had transpired before Tsunade had healed him he was still a bundle of energy. Though she was worried about what Clara would teach him, she knew nothing about the older woman other than that she was a foreigner and that she had saved Naruto's life.

Tsunade had similar thoughts, she liked the kid while he was too energetic for her tastes; she couldn't help but be reminded of her own brother. And the passion he had when he talked about things that he liked.

Though she knew a little more about the woman taken him then her apprentice she had to wonder if he was going too alright. She had managed to get Clara to tell her what she had planned for survival training and she was not pleased with the idea.

She relented after the explanation and the knowledge that regardless Naruto wouldn't back out even if he didn't like it. _'He is so much like her even if he doesn't look like it.'_ While it wasn't much of a gift she had made sure to get the white spiral stitched onto the back of his t shirts as well as his two jackets.

It wasn't much but she believed that if he held so much pride in his name then he should be able to hold pride in their symbol. She had made a decision that when they meet again she would tell him what she knew about his clan.

-()-

"So where are we going?" Naruto asked as they were walking down the road, he was looking forward to doing his survival test so he could actually be taught. _'I am going to pass that test!'_ he shouted in his mind. The enthusiasm was rolling off him.

"Kaminari… no… Kuni… I think… it called… we going to docks… get boat" she said.

"A boat where we going, when do we do the survival test" he was making rapid hand movements as he spoke.

"My… land… and when we get there" she answered again. "But first" she started as she reached into one of her coat pockets and pulled out a book.

Naruto looked at the book and then the coat, it took a second for his mind to realise the problem. "Ah Clara how did that book fit in your pocket. It's much bigger" as he tilted his head to the side in thought.

"It's a kind of magic" she said with a grin at the boy, she loved when people took notice of her coat, _'Damn thing was hard enough to create, people damn well better be pleased by it'_ she thought. She watched as Naruto's face lit up again at the idea of magic.

"What's that? Is it a magic book? Are you going to teach me magic?" he asked in one breath.

"Talk slow… not good with language… barrier" she said trying out the words that Tsunade and Shizune had helped her with. In the past five days she had made a lot of progress. Naruto helped with trying to understand speedy talkers but it was still somewhat difficult.

Naruto repeated his three questions but at a somewhat slower pace.

"It's a book, no it's not a magic book… and maybe" before he could start asking more questions she placed the book in his hand, "Before test… must study… different language were you going… need to learn to read and write… give you big advantage."

-()-

It had taken nearly two month to get to the docks where she had docked her ship. In that time she had spent much of that time teaching Naruto how to speak and read the language while they were walking.

She could have gotten there in two weeks by herself. But with a small child the journey becomes more difficult. Though the journey could have been made in a month if she hadn't made several stops along the way.

One such stop was that she had gotten a teacher from one of the towns they passed and paid him quite well to try and drive the knowledge of how to read and write into Naruto. No point if he comes back and can't speak the language.

She also got several books to help him with this after they left. The choice to waste two weeks on this had nothing to do with the fact that she couldn't read and write the language and now she had an excuse to have someone teach it. Nope not at all, it was all for Naruto's benefit.

Another two weeks were spent in doing odd jobs that she happened to come across and giving Naruto a slight idea of what being a mercenary entails. Especially the crappy jobs that you do to pay bills, not everything is glamourous.

She also found that Naruto was not one for books, she could relate it was hard to learn from books especially if it's not interesting to you. But she managed to get him to do it, she also mixed in a couple of more useful lessons when they were in a small village. Nothing too bad, and was not surprised when he had shown some knowledge in the areas already.

In two months she herself had managed to nearly become fluent in the language that they used and only had minor trouble reading and writing nothing that time and practice wouldn't fix.

She was proud of Naruto's achievement. He wasn't fluent in the common tongue yet and had trouble reading and writing but he had learnt to read and write in his native tongue. And she had time to get him ready for his survival test.

She had finally relented and told him what it was going to be, in hindsight it was probably better to do it before she took him across the waters since he would have still had a time to back out.

-(flashback)-

"_Clara… wh… wat… what… is… test?" Naruto asked in his heavily accented use of common._

_Clara smiled at his attempts to speak, she had made it a rule that on the road he had to speak in common as much as possible. The fact that he was trying as much as possible boded well for him._

"_I'll tell you in time" she said as they continued walking, she spoke slower for him then what she would normally do an enunciated her words more. As time went on she would do this less and less. _

_He scrunched his eyes as he tried to think over what she said after placing the words he gave his reply. _

"_Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeee tell me" she turned to look at him and immediately regretted it, he was making that same face that he had been making when he managed to convince Tsunade to let him have ramen. She didn't want to see how much worse that face could become._

"_Fine your Survival test is…" she paused for a moment to build anticipation. "To survive for six months on the streets of a city."_

_Naruto walked while he pondered it over, "Cou… could ou… you… re… report… th that, please."_

_Looking down at him she noticed that he was still working out the words, "firstly it's repeat, not report. Secondly, you" she said pointing at Naruto, "will survive for six months" she held up six fingers in order to help him understand. "On the streets of a city."_

_She watched as his eyes got wider as he started to digest what she had said, "ehh But why?"_

_She mused for a moment to try and find the best way to explain it to him, "People think they have had it hard… it doesn't matter how good or bad your life is there life has been worse." She paused to collect her thoughts. "Do you know what "to see something from a new perspective" means?" She asked._

_At the shake of his head she decided to elaborate, "It means to see something in a different view" she stopped her walking and reached into her coat, she pulled out a glass, a knife and a canteen of water. _

_Taking a seat on the path she motioned for Naruto to sit beside her. Once he was seated she poured water into the glass until it was half full. _

"Now," _she started in his native tongue wanting to make sure he understood the lesson. _"When some people talk about this glass will tell you that the glass is half empty. Others will tell you that the Glass is half full. It is all about perspective, how you are able to look at something. So which is it is the glass half full or half empty?" _She asked simply._

_Naruto_ _sat for a moment thinking over what was said before a thought crossed his mind. _"Why not use a smaller glass then it would have been full?" 

_Clara let out a loud laugh at the boys question before smiling and pick up the knife. _"And there's the third way to look at it, use a smaller glass, but there is also the idea that the glass is too big. Same thing just slightly different." _ She said as she began to carefully cut around the glass until the water was even with the new brim. Once she was finished she put the knife and canteen away before throwing the glass to the side of the road. _

"_Many of my lessons require experience to understand" she started slowly in common again. "And just telling you the meaning won't work" she started walking ahead with Naruto trailing behind listening intently._

"_No matter how hard life has been to you, some people have had it the same if not worst." She took careful strides in her steps listening to his scurrying feet trying to keep up. She had his attention, she let the silence lie for a moment or two to see if he completely understood. When he didn't say anything she continued._

"_This is about value, to learn the true value of what you want." She paused as she thought over her last statement. "That's not entirely true, by the fucking divines this is hard." Scratching at her head she tried to think of a better way to describe it for a child to understand._

"Because of how I grew up… I knew what I wanted in life, now some of that changed as I got older… but I knew on some level what I wanted"_ she slowed down and turned around to look at Naruto. She got down on one knee and stared into his _eyes "that's what the survival test is for. If you pass you should understand a little bit more about yourself. And what it is that you want, not what I tell you, you want. Life isn't easy and life isn't fair, but that's the way things are. It's one of the absolutes of this world. But no one said you had to take it lying down. Survive, strive, and live."

-(flashback end)-

When she had finished her explanation they had continued their journey, Naruto had been very quiet for a while. Clara wondered if the idea of what the test contained made him consider opting out. After a few hours of walking he had made a very sudden declaration of _"I'm going… to ace this… test. dattebayo!" _ She had smiled at his enthusiasm, though she had hoped that he would lose the verbal tick that he had with the learning of a new language. Unfortunately that hadn't panned out to well.

Clara lead the way through the docks in order to get to her ship, she had just finished paying the dock master and had already purchased the supplies for the return journey, it was safe to say that a lot of people noticed hew ship. The sheer size of it made it stand out compared to the much smaller ships of this continent.

It had originally been crewed by twenty people, she had been on the ship for travel purposes along with a few other teammates at one point in time. However after some trouble out at sea the crew became four. And her being the Good Samaritan that she was immediately claimed the position of captain and set off on a new course.

None of her comrades decided to protest, since she had the most experience captaining ships. Oddly enough all her ships were commandeered in a similar manner and only this one came into port still floating.

'_Those were the days'_ she liked reminiscing about her voyages. It would take time to get it set up in order to actually set sail but once they were at sea it wouldn't be much work. She had sunk quite a bit of money into modifying the ship so that she could sail it by herself.

After four hours' work they were ready to set sail. It was the beginning of a brand new day.

-()-

A.N

Chapter 3 is complete. The pair is ready to set sail to a new land.

Hope you enjoyed reading and any feedback would be much appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

Naruto was having the time of his life, while there was very little to do at sea it was absolutely amazing to the young boy. Clara would continue to teach him the common tongue as she called it every day but he wasn't complaining he was getting better. He was also reading the books that he was given, some from his homeland and some from the strange one he was going to.

Clara told him that after he was fluent in the common tongue she was going to teach him a new language. Because it would help him later.

Clara also taught him aspects of sailing the ship as she put it "You're never too young to start learning to sail!" It was to help with his speaking, being able to take orders and understand them. She was nice to him, nicer than anyone had ever been before. There were only two people in Konoha who had ever been nice to him.

One was the old man who use to visit him every so often in the orphanage, and the other was the girl from the ramen stand who once gave him free ramen when she found him in the street. That hadn't been long before he was driven out of the village, he would wonder every so often if she was doing well.

Both Shizune and Tsunade had been nice to him as well and Shizune would treat him like a little brother. But Clara was different she was trying to help him, and he wouldn't disappoint her, he would pass her test, he would be trained to protect himself and he would make her proud that was his main goal at the moment. Make Clara proud of him.

He couldn't get her words out of his head either _'Survive. Strive. Live.'_ They were words that seemed to stick with him.

Clara would also play games with him when she had free times, the main one was tag, it would be his job to find and catch her, and sometimes she would hide in parts of the ship while others she would simply keep running away from him in order to get him to chase after her.

He really enjoyed the time she was in the crow's nest and he had to climb up to get to her. He did not know why but climbing felt fun. Clara had also told him she was impressed with how fast he had managed to scale it.

-(one month later)-

They had been travelling at sea for a month now and some of the novelty of it had worn off for Naruto, he still enjoyed being out on the ocean even if some of the storms were kind of scary. He still enjoyed being out at sea, he had managed to finish learning the common tongue, though Clara would constantly test him on his native and common languages by swapping how she would talk.

She had even started on the third language that he would need to learn. She had called this one elvish, it was apparently the second most common language in the continent.

This one was far more infuriating to learn, he kept getting mixed up between languages and found that the translations between the three were an absolute nightmare. Clara wasn't making it easier she had started to set out task that he would have to do every time he made a mistake.

They weren't that hard a lot of time it was running laps having to repeat the word, phrase or sentence. The length of the mistake dictated the laps. If the word was five letters long, he had to run eight laps, five for each letter one for the word and two for the translation. He had to run for the length of the phrase or sentence with a lap added in for each mistake.

Clara told him that she was going to keep making it harder and harder the more mistakes that he made. She had said it with such a sweet smile that he knew that she was telling the truth.

However, it sounded worse than it really was. When he had been in the orphanage, he used to be punished for random things that happened, though he was never given a real explanation.

However, Clara was always teaching him something, and the punishment for failure was always similar. Nevertheless, what made it worth it were the times she would take pride in how well he had done.

Like the time he was learning common and was able to recite "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers; A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked; If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?" three times without stuttering once. She was so proud of him that day. He wasn't sure if he had ever made anyone as proud as he had right then.

-()-

Standing at the wheel of the ship Clara looked out at the sea, she loved the open sea, there were so many places to go, so many lands still not discovered. No matter how far she travelled, it always made her happy that there was still so much of the world that she hadn't seen.

She had spent a long portion of her life on her own continent and hadn't seen everything there, she was one of the few to travel to the outer realms and comeback alive. Now she had made it to a whole other continent that still was ripe for exploration.

She watched as her soon to be apprentice climbed up to the crow's nest. She was proud of the little boy, he seemed so eager to learn, to become better and to want to do others proud. In all her years travelling, she hadn't found someone so exceptional.

He didn't show anything special in the terms of abilities, But then again he was only four. No what made him so special was that drive that he had. If properly nurtured the boy had the potential to become something great. She was considering if there were anything else, that she would be able to teach him.

Later that night she set at her table in the captain's cabin, when she had first commandeered the ship the place hadn't been that special, it had been a big room with some lavish items strewn around it. She had gutted most of the room and sold off a lot of the items.

The room was painted a dark green, with her desk situated in front of the windows at the back. They were installed into the ship after she had gotten it. On one wall was a small armoury of her more ornamental weapons that she had acquired over her time. Each one capable of being used but truth be told they were nothing special any only that some of them had been gifts she would of sold them.

On the opposite wall was a bookcase that was full of books, she had books on different subjects most she never had a use for, more of a pacing fancy. Some had maps of the different lands she had been to, she had recently added to the collection.

In the centre of the room was a round wooden table, to most it wouldn't look that important. However, it was the single most expensive and costly part of her refurbishing. The table was inscribed with runes that linked to different parts of the ship. It allowed her to have complete control of every section without having to be on deck. The drawback to this was that it was quite taxing to use, especially for long periods. But it was a necessity when sailing as far as she has by herself. Some storms were just too dangerous to be out in, especially by yourself.

Clara set contemplating her next set of actions, Naruto showed a lot of promise. And she was under no delusion that he would give up the test. No the only real problem was that he might not survive it.

It was the only thing that she didn't like, to her it was useful it would help him in the long run and give him perspective to how hard life can be. But she didn't like the idea that something might happen to him. Not only did she find herself growing attached to the blonde, but she didn't like the idea of hurting children.

To her all children were innocent, regardless of any point that someone would make about good and evil a child was innocent and could be taught. She wasn't much of a teacher, in fact Naruto could be considered the first student she has ever had.

Scratching at a slight itch in her chest, she got up and made her way to the bookshelf, looking through the books her eyes finally came to rest on the ones that she wanted. Picking out three books, she went over to her desk and set them down.

Taking back her seat she relaxed into it before reaching for the top drawer, pulling out a bottle with a brown liquid and glass.

Pouring herself a drink, she lifted the first book. She had a plan on what to do; it wouldn't help him with the survival test. However, it would help him when it came to training him.

Clara set late into the night reading the books.

-()-

Naruto set up in the crow's nest looking over the sea, he had lifted Clara's small telescope in order to look out hoping to see something.

It was something that he started doing every morning, he enjoyed looking out at sea, and even if there was nothing there some part of his little mind told him that seeing land for the first time will be important.

"_Naruto get down here now"_ he heard Clara's voice coming from the captain quarters of the ship. It took him nearly five minutes to figure out what she had said; she had to repeat herself four times before it sunk in. _'Ah I'm going to be running laps all morning' _Naruto thought as he climbed down to the deck.

Walking over to the captain quarters he knocked loudly on the door, he didn't know how someone with a soft voice managed to make it carry so far.

Upon opening the door, he was greeted by a stern face, _"What took you?"_ she said in common.

"_Ah, I didn't understand what you said"_ he replied back, as he nervously rubbed the back of his head.

"Twenty three laps around the ship, repeating, Naruto get down her now, in elvish, common and your native tongue. Go on" She said in elvish this time. Nodding his head, he took off running. He never saw the smile on her face as she watched him go through the laps.

When he had finished running around the ship Clara called him back over, _"Okay I have some things that I wish to give you"_ she spoke in common to him, he knew that it had to be important, ever since he started to become fluent in the language she would use it as her go to one for important information.

"_What is it Clara?"_ he asked with his head tilted to the side. He watched as she turned around and walked into the captain's quarters. With the door left open Naruto decided to follow her in, it was the first time he had ever been in the room.

It wasn't that he was not allowed in but it was Clara's room and she didn't come into his unless to wake him up when he slept in.

He didn't know what to expect, he thought that it would be something awesome an awe inspiring, but he was greeted by a very plain room. Two tables, one more lavish then the other, though when comparing the bigger table to the one that was in the centre wasn't that hard.

There was a bookcase filled with books, and he had to wonder was this were she kept getting the books that she gave him to read. The coolest part of the room had to be the small armoury on the wall opposite the bookcase.

He was drawn out of thoughts when she told him to take a seat, moving over to the chair in front of the desk he sat and waited for Clara to speak again.

He watched as Clara took her own seat, _"Okay today I'm going to teach you something a little different than usual."_ She said in a calm voice.

Naruto was excited she was going to teach him something other than a language. _"What, what, what?"_ He spoke hurriedly, he was near bouncing in his seat.

"_I am going to teach you of the Realms, and your quite lucky few are as experienced as I am with the Realms. Some know of them, some have been to one before and survived."_ She said with a smile on her face.

Naruto's heart dropped slightly at that, he had thought she would teach him something cool, he quickly put a smile back on his face, he was thankful to Clara, and would take any teaching she offered. Nodding his head he waited for her to go on.

"_Do you know anything about the Realms?"_ she asked him. Shaking his head in the negative she gave a slight nod expecting as much.

"_Well the first thing that you will have to understand is that there are many Realms, all of them are separate and yet all of them are connected." _ She started, He was confused though if they were separate how could they be connected at the same time, his little mind tried to work out what she meant.

"_Each Realm stands alone, but is capable of connecting to each other through mortals. A mortal can go between the Realms. This is because of the Realm we reside in. Our Realm touches on all others, it is possible for us to call beings from one Realm to ours as well as be called to their Realm"_ When she finished speaking she waited for him to ask any questions.

"_Why is our Realm like that?"_ Naruto asked.

"_Well it is quite simple, when the realms were formed long ago, and I don't know when or how, I am certain none of the divines or other such beings have that knowledge. Our Realm was at the epicentre. It is at the middle of all Realms, and is connected to all Realms."_ As she was speaking she drew a small diagram on a page, a circle in the middle with other circles branching from it.

"_Wait you said beings, does that mean people live in these Realms"_ he asked trying to observe the information.

"_Very good, yes there are other beings in these realms, some are people, some are beings, and some are entities that we refer to as the divine and entities that are like the Divine. Although there are some Realms that are empty. There are also some Realms that have a form of sentience. It is unknown just how many Realms there are."_

Naruto was scratching his head at the words that she was saying, it was a lot to take in, he had heard her speak about the divines before, sometime when she was stumped or in disbelief, more and more though were filled with some colourful language. _"What are the divines and the entities that are like the divines?"_ he decided to ask.

"_The divines are Gods and Goddess, and the entities like them are beings not really revered as Gods but are similar."_ She said in such a matter of fact tone that Naruto felt stumped.

"_Actual Gods... Why do you swear about them at times?" _Though he knew, it was a bit hypocritical, as he had cursed at God as well when he was living on the streets of Konoha.

"_Well to put it simply the divines are assholes, they draw strength from belief and there Realms. Moreover, they have a tendency to interfere in our lives for the sake of it."_ It was the first time Naruto had ever seen Clara sneer.

"_What do you mean belief?"_ He asked.

"_The Divines and other entities use the belief of mortals as a source of influence... I suppose the best way to describe it is like this"_ Naruto watched as Clara took another piece of paper, she drew a big circle in the centre and six circles around it. In the centre circle she proceeded to draw three small circles. She then placed an X in each of the outside circle.

"_Imagine this is our Realm"_ she said as she pointed to the centre circle. _"And these are the Continents in our Realm"_ she pointed to the three smaller circles, _"and out here we have the other Realms, and each X is a member of the divine. Do you understand so far?"_

Naruto nodded his head at her words.

"_Now the reason why the Divine and other such beings require belief is that through knowing of their existence are they able to actually affect or Realm or more specifically certain areas in or Realm." _She stopped talking and looked at him.

It was as if she knew the question that he was going to ask. Though to be fair, it would not have been that difficult.

"_What this means" _she started again by pointing at one of the small circles, _"that if everyone in this circle believed in one divine, then that divine has an aspect of power in that area. There power in a given area is derived from the amount that believes in them. What happens though when an area has a lot of people that believe in all of them?"_ She asked looking at Naruto.

"_Then they meddle in lives of mortals?"_ he asked quizzically.

Clara smiled at his answer, _"Yes, they will try and meddle in the lives of people, try and find champions to carry their name. Gift mortals with power based off of that belief. Now not all of them are bad, I just am not a fan of the Divines. But this is where teaching you of the Realms is important."_

Smiling and leaning back in her chair, she began her new explanation _"Mortals don't only draw power from the Divines, but of the Realms themselves. All powers be they spiritual, physical, natural, or any of the other types draw from the Realms. Not all do it in the same way, some people naturally draw upon one of the spiritual or physical Realms, and some draw on the powers of our Realm."_

This stumped Naruto _'if all people use these Realms, does that mean that even the Ninja in the Elemental Nations do? Do they even know?'_ Naruto decided to voice his thoughts to Clara.

"_Do the Ninja's in the Elemental Nations use them?" _ Clara took a moment to ponder the question.

"_They do, I think, though how I don't know. Though in saying that there is still a lot that we don't understand about the Realms, and it could be possible that they originate from a Realm without ever being a part of it. From the few that I seen in action, they use techniques I have never seen before. It was why I cut off the Ninja's hand that night, in order to stop him from using them."_ She replied simply.

"_What do you mean originate from a Realm"_ Naruto asked.

"_It is possible that a divine blessed someone with the power and knowledge to use it, and then that was passed on. Wielders of the faith of a divine can teach others how to use their abilities. So it is possible to teach it without having to come into contact with it. Though that only works on specific Realms. Other realms need some form of link. This can be a natural link that you are born with, the same way people are more in tune with certain elements.'_

'_Although maybe the people in your land are different from the people in mine, the only way I could find out would be to actually talk to someone who knows a great deal about what your Mercenaries use, and is also willing to tell me.'_ She finished.

Naruto watched as she got up from her chair and walked over to her bookcase, pulling down two books she made her way back to the table. Opening one of the drawers she pulled out two paintbrushes, a jar of blue paint and two small bags. The first bag was filled with a gold substance, and the other with a black substance.

"_What are they for?"_ Naruto asked eyeing the bags.

"_This is something very special" _was her reply as she took out two small plates, placing them on the table she poured some of the black powder onto one of the plates before pouring paint on top. Then she mixed the powder and paint together. She repeated the process with the gold bag.

"_Now just come over here for a moment and take off your top, this won't take long"_

Not wanting to disappoint her Naruto quickly followed the instructions, even if he did find them somewhat weird.

The brush tickled his arm as she drew a pattern on it, she had started with the paint that had the black dust in it and painted his right arm. Once she had finished, Clara quickly picked up the second brush and began to paint another pattern onto his other arm.

Naruto watched as the first pattern seemed to twist upon itself, as it broke into three parts, the first seemed to be a cloak billowing, the second a small dagger but the most interesting part was the third, and it seemed to protrude out of the cloak like a shadow that, connected the knife and cloak. The shadow slowly extended itself around the arm until it reached just in front of the cloak. Not touching it.

The second pattern slowly shifted into a plus symbol on his arm, before the ends of it turned into circles. Then another plus symbol started to form on the left and right sides of the plus symbol, this continued until it circled the arm. He was transfixed as what seemed like a vine formed on the first circle at the top and slowly move clockwise around the arm, connecting all of the circles that were at the top of the pluses until it reached around to the beginning, then the bottom circle began to make an intricate chain designed in the same fashion as the vines.

Upon finishing the design Naruto felt his right arm begin to tingle, the black ink began to lighten, it was still dark, but small definition could be seen in the cloak and dagger. The shadow became both lighter and darker in areas, where the main shadows of the cloak and dagger where darker, but they became lighter as the further they spread.

After finishing his left arm began to tingle, he could see the colour shift completely, what was once black slowly brightened until it became gold. The gold vines upon the top had green and red flecks within them, while the chain on the bottom was whiter with gold through it. However the most peculiar part was the centre circle that Clara had started with. It was slowly turning blue with a ripple like effect. Naruto was transfixed at the slowly changing circle. As the colours slowly changed he started to see trace amounts of white in it, the colour started to fill outwards from the circle ever so slightly as if it was splashing out. _'It looks like a lake with something thrown in."_

Clara watched with a small frown at what had transpired, the right arm had done exactly what it was meant to do. However she was slightly bothered by what had transpired with the left. _'Maybe that was a bad idea. There is not much can be done now, I guess we will have to wait and see, at least the chain is there.'_

When it had all settled down Clara looked at Naruto "How do you feel" she said in elvish.

"O…K… What are… these?" Naruto replied slowly, he was curious about what he had just received.

"I will explain them to you at a later date, for now don't worry about them. "

Naruto sat for a moment before nodding his head. "So… what… now?" he asked with his head tilted to the side in his normal inquisitive manner.

"Run along for now, I have some books for you to read later about this, some will be written in common and some in elvish. I have a copy of one of the books in both languages." She said while pointing to the door.

Naruto got from his seat smiling before running out onto the deck.

-()-

Clara sat in her office thinking over the events of the day. She had given Naruto the books she was talking about and left him to his own devices. Like all the other times she told him to come to her with any questions or problems.

"The lady has taken an interest in one of them" came a soft sweet feminine voice.

"A child no less" came a reply from another voice.

"To mark one I wonder, or by accident did it happen" a third voice spoke.

At hearing the three voices Clara opened up her drawer and pulled out the bottle of brown liquid, pulling the cork out with her teeth she proceeded to take a long swig.

"Has the lady come to a decision?" the first voice aid again.

"Or is she still waiting?" asked the second.

"Running away, the lady likes to do. But can't run forever can she?" Came the third.

"I'm not running away from anything!" she shouted at the voices.

"But the lady has been running for a long time." Said the first.

"Maybe she intends to take her place. Oh that would be quite the day"

"Coming to us are you. Say yes please, it would be so much more interesting with you." Said the second.

Clara stood up to leave the room until she felt a finger on her chest directly under her heart. Looking dead ahead she could see the wispy outlines of a female, not much could be discerned from the outline.

"Girls the Lady has never been running." The figure said in a sickly sweet voice. "She can't yet" it said while tapping her chest. "But one day you will. That I have no doubt, others aren't as patient as we are, and there are those that don't like you." Clara could nearly hear the woman's smile. "I wonder… oh but it doesn't matter does it?" the glee in her voice was palpable.

Clara just wanted to leave the room, and go to sleep. They would be gone by morning and then she wouldn't have to worry about them, she never did before.

-(Time Skip)-

It had been six months since they left the elemental nations, six long months out at sea. For one Naruto Uzumaki it had been six of the most interesting months of his life. The little four year old boy had enjoyed every moment of being on the sea.

It didn't matter if he was forced to learn something new, it didn't matter that the markings on his arm would tingle every now and then. No what had made the months so worth it was the person that brought him out to sea.

Clara had taught him, helped him, and unlike so many others in Konoha actually showed him care. In the past month she had been stressing to him how hard these next six months were going to be for him. But he didn't care, he would complete the test she had set him. It couldn't be any harder than it had been when he was living on the streets of Konoha.

He had managed to survive for months there until Clara found him, and he would do it again here. In his little mind that was all there was to it. As soon as the ship pulled into dock he was on his own. He would be fending for himself again, he knew it would be strange after the length of time he had spent with Clara to suddenly be alone again, but if proving himself here was what it took for Clara to teach him then he would do it.

-()-

Clara watched as the boy left the ship, all he had was the clothes on his back and a smile on his face. After spending so long with the boy she had to wonder if this was actually the right idea. Yes it would test him, he would learn that the world wasn't easy. He would learn similar lessons that she had growing up, and if they didn't break him he would be better for it.

But some part of her had to wonder that maybe this was a bad idea, that giving him the marks was a bad idea. She hated thinking that way, she hated self-doubt, she had made her choices like so many before and even if they were the wrong choice she wouldn't question them. She would try to improve next time if she disagreed with the outcome, she would try to alter the outcome as much as she could without going back on her word.

Self-doubt though questions your own ability, it makes you want to go back on something you agreed upon. She never liked the idea of changing what you have set out to do, if you have given your word you follow through. No matter who you gave it to.

As she lost sight of Naruto as he went into the streets of Tolran she wondered what was causing this sudden bought of self-doubt. Squashing it to the side she went to the dock master, she had six months to kill. Though she did have to go and prepare for the boy's training, regardless of anything else she knew that Naruto would succeed, he had that type of drive.

'_He is a very special person'_ where her last thoughts before leaving the ship.

-()-

A.N

And so the fourth chapter is complete, hope you enjoyed.


	5. Chapter 5

The silence of the night had been broken by a loud bang and a shout "Come out, we know you're in there!" a rather large man shouted at an old building in the middle of Tolran's slum district. Five men stood beside him about to break in the door.

"You didn't think we would find you? You stole money belonging to the Boss and he wants us to collect!" A second man shouted, it had taken them a while in order to find the proper place,

The night became silent once again, until a very sudden crash was heard followed by the sound of something hitting the ground.

-()-

Naruto was running through the streets of Tolran, he had been there for nearly six months, he hadn't changed much in that time, his clothes were ratty and dirty and his hair was longer.

He ran as fast as his little legs would take him while nearly dragging his cargo behind him. For some of the people this was nearly a usual sight. But unlike the times before where he would usually have a smile while he ran this time his face was set in a frown. He was scared, he was very scared.

He had stolen from Dolton. Dolton was one of the criminal bosses in Tolran, he had his hands in most underhanded things in the city. And ever since three months ago was Naruto's number one most hated person.

Making twists and turns on the street he had weaved through different parts to try and get away from his pursuers.

It was kind of hard though Blonde and orange stood out a lot, not that he actually cared about that it just made things a little bit harder. As he turned around another alleyway he saw a man appear at the front of it, "I found you little bastards!" he shouted for the other thugs to hear.

"When I let go slide" Naruto said to the person following him. Without any other words Naruto picked up the speed before pulling his arm forward, before he suddenly stopped, catapulting the person forward. Naruto watched as the orange hair went past his line of vision before going into a baseball slide under the man's legs.

The moment Naruto let go he picked up running again as he watched his friend slide under the man's legs he jumped forward into a tumble in order to roll through his legs. Before he could properly orientate himself he felt his right hand be grabbed and dragged forward like he had been previously doing.

Trying to right himself as he moved he slowly brought himself under control before picking up the pace again, as he reached this partners side, blue eyes met green and he felt the hand on his wrist loosen. Quickly stretching out his palm and moving his wrist in a circular motion he broke the weak hold on his wrist before grabbing onto the others and picking up the pace once again.

"Left" the person said.

Naruto didn't need to question it, taking a sharp turn he started running into the alleyway on the left.

"Left again, and second exit on the right" the person gave the direction.

Following each one Naruto continued running until he came back out into the middle of the street.

"Think you can get away from us you little fuckers?" he heard a voice shouting from his left.

Using all the linguistic skills that he had learnt from Clara and living in Talron had taught him he tried to articulate his current state in the best way possible. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Tightening his grip he ran to his right hoping to escape the people chasing him.

Taking a turn through another alleyway he kept running forward, "there's a dead end up ahead!" the person shouted.

"Fuck, this is not our day" Naruto had to make a decision backtrack and get caught or continue and try and find a way out. Trying to find some form of way out he noticed one of the buildings had an open window six or seven feet up from the ground.

"Get ready to jump" he said as he let go of the wrist and ran towards the open window, skidding to a stop he braced his hands ready to give a boost.

With a grace that can only come from practice his partner to a long stride so that their right foot was on the hands. As Naruto used all the strength in his little body to try and give a boost upwards, the other used the hand as a launching platform to jump to the open window. Quickly grabbing the window ledge and scurrying to right themselves.

Naruto ran back a few feet to give himself a running start, running towards the wall he jumped and catching onto the outstretched hand of his partner. Looking up he saw the strain in the girl's bright green eyes trying to help him up.

After what felt like a lifetime she had managed to pull him into the building. Both set on the other side of the window panting and trying to catch there breathe.

"What… what did you… you do Naruto?" the girl beside him asked between heavy breathes.

"Don't get angry… But I kind of stole things from Dolton" Naruto said while rubbing the back of his head.

"What did you steal?" she asked in an exasperated manner, she was trying not to hit him.

Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a small leather pouch before handing it to her.

Opening the pouch she say that it contained a lot of gold pieces. She was shocked at what she saw. "About all of his profits this month" Naruto said with a smile, he was happy when he could do anything to screw over the man.

She just sat there looking at the bag for a moment, before looking back at Naruto, she felt her face turn into a grin at the thought, and suddenly all of the running not only made sense but was very much worth it.

There moment of respite was broken by the sound of the door breaking open. "I know you little bastards are in here" a voice shouted.

Grabbing the bag he shoved it into his pocket. "Fuck Kiva where do we go?"

Looking around the room she had only one thought, "We go up" she said as she stood up and rushed to the door.

Naruto not wanting to be left behind followed her, both moved as fast and as quietly that they could until they came to the stairs. Both children bolted up them in order to get away from there pursuer. When they made it to the top Naruto watched as Kiva ran to a window and opened it before climbing out onto a slanted roof.

"Come on!" she shouted.

Naruto quickly moved to follow the girl, climbing out the window he watched as scaled the roof, following behind her he came to the top and saw what her plan was. A lot of the buildings in this section of the town were conjoined, they would be able to at least get somewhere by using them. With that thought in mind Naruto started to run.

-()-

Clara came walking into the gates at the North of Talron and was slightly disappointed that Naruto wasn't there already waiting for her. It had been six months and she was hopping that he had survived.

'_Where is the little brat, he better not of gotten himself killed'_ she thought as she stood near the gates.

Clara could remember seeing the Blonde child run off, and hoped that the survival test didn't hurt him too much. As she was thinking about it her mind drifted to the last conversation she had with the boy.

-(Flashback)-

_The ship was getting ready to pull into port, it had been a rather interesting time with the kid and she was looking forward to the idea of actually teaching him how to fight. _

"_See you in six months Clara, I will pass this test no problem!" came the excited shout from Naruto._

"_Yea, yea brat just keep yourself alive and I will see you in six months" she said while she was preparing to disembark, she had already taken all of his stuff except the clothes on his back._

-(Flashback end)-

It was in that moment she realised a major fault in how she had set up the test _'I didn't tell him where I would collect him!'_

"FUCK!" came the loud shout, most of the guards that had been stationed at the gate jumped in shock at the woman's outburst. But what they say next confused them even more.

They watched as a woman dressed in some form of cross between a pirate, and a highway man started to bang her head off the wall "Stupid, Stupid, Stupid." Each word was punctuated by the sound of banging.

"No!" She declared, "as far as he will be concerned he forgot where it was and not that I didn't tell him" she said with a laugh.

"What are you talking about?" one of the braver guards regarded the woman that he feared may have been unstable.

"My soon to be apprentice forgot the meeting point and now I have to go find him" she said.

"Did you forget to tell him?" he asked with an eyebrow raised.

"What me, nooooooo" Clara said as she scratched her collar, _'Damn this Guard has seen through my clever deception'_ "Got to go get him" she said before taking off.

As she walked through the streets she had to try and figure out where the boy would be, _'Might as well check the slums'_ it was more likely that he would wind up in the slums then one of the richer districts. Especially at this time of night.

As she walked through the streets she heard a commotion of men shouting, deciding to check it out she saw three men run to a house at the end of a row before kicking in the door.

"Those little fuckers are in here, well skin'em alive once we get our hands on them." Said the man at the front.

Clara stood outside the house to see what was happening, _'Maybe I might get some more work, people are willing to pay anything when there desperate' _that thought brought about a sense of Déjà vu. The last time she had thought that was when she had met… _'Naruto!'_ She didn't know what suddenly cause the thought but she was about to go into the house when the sudden sound of breaking glass caught her attention.

Looking up to the second floor she watched as someone came jumping out from it before they hit the ground rolling and righted themselves. It was a blonde haired boy in what may have been a white t shirt at one point, with a spiral on the back.

She was about to get his attention when she noticed a second person quickly come through the window performing the same roll, this one had orange hair, and wore a dirty green t-shirt, the most noticeable feature though was the slightly pointy ears that they had.

Clara watched as with a practiced ease the boy's hand grasped the girl's wrist as they started running in sync. She was about to give chase when five men came out of the house. "Fuck those little wretches, I will make sure to take my time with both of them" said the man at the front of the group.

He was a rather plain man shaggy brown hair, he wore a brown vest and grey long sleeved t shirt. And a pair of black trousers. Though he seemed to be favouring one leg more than the other and he had a nasty cut on one of his checks that would probably leave a scar.

"Excuse me but what are you going to do to those children." Clara asked keeping her anger in check. It wasn't just that he said he was going to kill them that made her angry, it was the 'take his time' could mean a few things, and each one made her more angry then the previous.

"What is it that you want whore? Looking to take a spin" one of the men said, she stared at the man with a blank look _'I don't know what's more insulting the fact that he called me a whore or that he thinks that I would actually want to go for a tumble with him… definitely the tumble.'_

"What's it matter what I want to do to the little fucks? By the end they'll either be dead or begging for more." The man with the cut said.

That did it for Clara. She looked them all over five thugs that can't keep up with children, they wouldn't be no trouble.

She let out a hearty laugh at the man's words, but there was no mirth in her eyes. "Well then let's see if I can make you beg for more."

The man let smile appear on his lips which was replaced by a sneer when he saw Clara reach into her coat.

The thug on the left moved first, trying to take the initiative, lunging he tried to catch her off guard. The attack was sloppy all Clara had to do was move slightly for it to become ineffective. Before any of them could take an action Clara moved.

The bandits watched as she flitted from the man now standing beside her to the main thug appearing in his shadow. She drew a knife and attacked the man cutting him deeply on the other cheek. While still staying close to the man she watched as a second lunged to hit her with a knife he had drawn.

As the lunge came closer she used her own knife to redirect the man while moving. The shout of pain from the leader could be heard through the street.

The leader made an attempt to hit her, swinging his fist he tried to knock her out with one punch. His effort was misplaced as Clara brought up her knife. His fist connecting with the blade, a second shout of pain could be heard.

The next two attacked simultaneously, the first lunged to grab her while the other drew a knife to attack.

Clara dodged the lunge and the man fell into the leader, taking him to the ground. The second went for a side swipe. Clara blocked the attack on the flat of her blade. Knocking the attack away she spun to try and dodge the first thugs attack.

A sudden impact came to her face as she felt the man's fist. Shocked that the thug managed to hit her she dropped her knife. The shock soon gave way to a sneer at the man, and in one fluid motion she drew her sword, lunged forward and planted it into the thug and leader on the ground keeping them pinned before tackling the one who hit her.

There was a sudden lull in the combat until a very loud thump was heard, the two that were standing looked on as the woman had grabbed there partner's head and slammed it into the ground with enough force to crack his skull.

The second thug recovered first from the attack and went to try and get her when she was down. Rushing over he tried to plant his foot in Clara's side. Grabbing the now deceased thug she rolled to the side. The man's foot connected with the dead man.

The two on the ground writhed in pain as they tried to get the sword out of them, the other standing thug went to help.

Before he could pull it out he saw Clara from her position on the ground flitted once again. It was as if she moved from one shadow to another.

He fear gripped him when his hand was on the sword as Clara appeared in front of the sword with her hand beneath his on the hilt. _"Qnapvat yvtuavat!"_ she spat at the man, sudden bursts of lightning came from the blade, electrocuting the man holding it and the two pinned by it. As the man fell to the ground she pulled a knife out of coat and through it at the last standing thug.

Taking a breath she stood up and looked at her handy work, the leader was still alive and looking fearful. "So do you want more?" she asked trying to give a coy smile, she didn't know if she pulled it off as he looked about ready to piss himself. Though he probably already had.

"Get away, get away" he tried to shout but his voice was cracking from the strain. Clara frowned at him before shrugging her shoulders. Pulling the blade from the ground she used it to slice the man's throat. Collecting her other two knives she checked if the men had anything of interest. Upon finding nothing she decided to get back to her main goal. "Where the hell did the brat run off to?" She said before taking off in the direction she had seen the pair running.

-()-

After breaking through their second window that evening the pair had continued running until they were in the market distract. They were currently hiding in an alleyway trying to catch their breath.

"I think we lost them" Naruto said to his partner, it was definitely one of the longer chases he had been on for the last six months.

"Yea, I don't hear any shouting now" Kiva said resting against the wall holding her side, "I think I have the mother of all stiches." Both kids let out a chuckle at that.

"Hey Naruto… thanks. I didn't know what would of happened if you had been any later through that window." She said smiling at the blonde boy.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly at her thanks, "No problem you would have done the same for me."

Both kids set in a comfortable silence until they regained their breath. The silence was eventually broken by the sound of their two stomachs rumbling.

"Well at least we wound up in the market district maybe we might be able to find something here" Kiva said.

Making their way out of the alleyway the moved slowly through the streets. Any of the people who were out and about paid little attention to them. To the vast majority they were a pair of dirty little orphans that were either kicked out of the orphanage or were never taken in by it. Both were just as likely.

They noticed that all of the shops were closed and decided that they would need to take some more drastic measures in order to find something to eat.

-()-

It hadn't taken Clara long to find out where the kids ran off to, she was about to call out to Naruto to get his attention when she noticed that him and his friend darted into an alley. Deciding to see what they were up to she quietly followed.

She saw the pair come to a stop at the back of a store. She was curious about what the pair had planned and decided to let things play out. She would be able to see how much he had grown in the last six months.

She watched as the ginger haired girl braced herself against the wall under a window, "on the count of three. Okay" she said simply.

Naruto nodded and pulled a rather dull looking blade out of his pants before biting it. Walking over he placed his foot in the girl's hands.

"One. Two. Three. Go" she whispered Clara barely being able to catch it. She watched as she boosted Naruto so he could grab onto the window ledge. Letting go with one hand he took the blade from his mouth and started to try and jimmy the window open.

Clara watched as Naruto managed to get the window open before pulling himself further in. Turning round he reached down in order to help get the girl through the window.

She waited in the alley for five minutes before she seen the ginger haired girl climbing out and throwing a small bundle on the ground. She then watched Naruto climb out before hanging from the windowsill and closing the window that he had just jimmied open in order to hide the fact that they broke in and how.

She watched as the two five year olds hungrily ate the food that they had stolen. They set opposite each other, Naruto with his back to her looking down one side of the alley and the girl looking down the other. She was impressed with them both. The girl wouldn't find her, but it was a good attempt at watching out for each other.

Deciding that she would make her presence known she stepped out of the shadows and spoke. "And what would you two be doing back here?" She saw the girl's eyes widen at her sudden appearance. Before she could say anything else she watched as Naruto grabbed the girl's hand, pulled himself up and positioned himself between herself and the girl. _'He really is a special kid'_ Clara thought as she watched the action.

-()-

Naruto's mind was racing a mile a minute, had they found them were they surrounded, how would they get out of here now. All these thoughts came crashing down when he took in the appearance of the person in front of him.

She was an average height woman with dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and pale skin. She had hard features that could look surprisingly soft at times, and light scarring. But the part that stood out the most was the clothes that the woman was wearing. The brown leather duster he remembered so well.

"Clara!" he couldn't contain his excitement at seeing the woman.

"Hey brat seems like you passed the test and not only that you picked up a stray. Good for you" She watched as both the kids eyes narrowed slightly at her words. _'Loyal to a fault, can be a good trait and a horrible one'_ she thought as she looked at the kids. She was both slightly surprised and impressed at how Naruto was looking at her. Surprised because he had never done that in all the time they travelled together. Impressed though because while he had yearned for her help on their journey he wasn't about to abandon someone that he had been living with for the past six months.

'_Though I may end up having to take a second person with me… Fuck the Divines'_ it's not that she resented the idea of taking the girl. It was more because of the fact that she hadn't planned on the idea.

"She's not a stray, Kiva's my friend" he said.

"Well that's good for you but are you coming along or are you just going to stand there all day." She asked before turning around preparing to leave.

"Can Kiva come with us?" He asked tepidly, he was hoping for a yes, but was out right terrified that she would say no. He didn't want to leave her behind, he still wanted to be trained by Clara, but he didn't want to abandon his first and only friend for it.

Clara looked over her shoulder at them "Pick up your damn stuff you brats and let's get going. I've wasted enough time as it is looking for you." As the words came out of her mouth she could see Naruto's face brighten as well as a smile appearing on Kiva's. Then she thought of what she said.

"That reminds me brat" she started as she walked over to Naruto, "Why weren't you at the meeting point at the North gate" she said before she hit him on the head.

Naruto fell flat on his face as she hit him, before thinking about what she said. He racked his brain for a moment before he realised an important fact. "What the hell. You never told me there was a fucking meeting point" he shouted.

Clara looked down at him. "Of course there was! Do you really think that I would send you out without telling you were to meet up?" she let out a loud forced chuckle as she said it.

She was about to turn around before she noticed Naruto's eyes get bigger as he looked at her like a lost puppy. _'No not that… anything but that!'_ she screamed in her mind. But it was too late the look that had made Tsunade give in and let him have Ramen, and had got her to tell him about his test had struck again.

"Sorry… I should have thought to make a meeting point" she said dejectedly.

Naruto instantly brightened up before grabbing Kiva's hand and walking forward. "That's okay." He said.

Clara hated that look, she would have to either beat it out of him, or train him to make it one of his most deadly weapons.

-()-

Omake

A simple meeting

Naruto ran as fast as his legs could take him, it had been only two weeks since he left the boat. Tolran had been both easier and harder to survive in than Konoha. The people here ignored him, but he got a lot less hateful stares than he did back in Konoha.

His current problem stemmed from the fact that he may have been a bit over his head when he pickpocketed a few people.

The group gave chase to claim back their stolen money, it was only a group of three. But three grown adults chasing after him gave the little boy memories of the last time he had been chased making him want to run faster.

Unknown to our young protagonist he was about to have a run in that would change his life, for at that exact same moment another was running from a similar situation.

A ginger haired child with point ears was running from a group that was angry at her for the doing the exact same thing.

As both children ran neither would realise the impact they were going to have on their unsuspecting soon to be partner…

There was the sound of two very sudden bangs, the first came when the children collided with each other. The second was when they fell to the ground.

Blue eyes met green, if any bystander had of been paying attention they would have seen a small flash of anger between the pair as they tried to pick themselves back up. That anger suddenly turned to surprise as they bore witness to the groups coming from the opposite direction.

Acting on instinct both kids grabbed each other's' hand and took off in order to get out of the area. As both ran they felt an unmerciful tug on their arms as they fell back to the ground. Not wanting to be deterred they both set about trying again to receive the same result. With the groups getting closer both kids began to fear what would happen and trying to figure out why they couldn't move.

"Left" said the ginger haired girl, figuring out the problem. Naruto nodded his head and tried to go left for the same result to happen again.

"MY LEFT!" the girl shouted before both kids managed to take off with the two groups now hot on their tail.

-()-

A.N

And now this for chapter five.

One of the things that I would like to say is one thing I want to try and make a point of in this story is that luck can have an effect, and this works in both positive and negative ways for the characters. Such as a weak no threat bandit managed to get a lucky punch in.

The other is the magic, I didn't want to use another language because I don't know one, and didn't trust the translations I got. The magic isn't that hard to figure out but I will give some additional details on what is used in later chapters.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

The party of three had set off from Talron two weeks ago, Naruto was excited as he would be able to train get stronger and achieve a new goal that he had sat for himself. The thought of his eventual success made him rub his hands in glee.

Clara was happy, Naruto had succeeded and though he seemed slightly different, she had known that he wouldn't come out of the ordeal unscathed. The only thing that was important was how he dealt with whatever was bothering him.

But she was worried about how every so often he would rub his hands together with a look of… hate wasn't the right word. She had seen hate, felt hate and knew it like an old friend and enemy.

What Naruto was displaying was close to hate but not it exactly, though she would see Kiva put a hand on his shoulder and the look would disappear. Sometimes it would be replaced with sadness. The girl seemed to have an effect on the boy, whether that was good or bad would be seen.

Kiva herself was rather excited. Only a few people had ever helped her in her short life, and Naruto had been the main one among them. Now this woman was helping her as well. She didn't know what would happen. She was glad she was going with Naruto. After spending so much time with him she didn't want to suddenly be alone again.

Clara wouldn't tell either of them anything about the training that they would be doing, and she made it a point to pick up the pace and not face them whenever Naruto asked her. She had witnessed how Naruto had managed to get stuff from adults with that look. It was however predominately used against older women, though she figured that as long as the person wasn't a cold hearted bastard he would be able to break them with it.

They small group were moving towards a place called Romlan. They had to get a train from Talroth which was a week's journey from Talron. Naruto couldn't help but point out that all the names were rather similar. At which point Clara said, 'Like the land of wind, land of fire, land of earth to name a few'.

Clara had thought the look of surprise on the kids' faces upon seeing the train for the first time was priceless. Neither had ever seen a train before, Kiva had heard about them, but as the old saying goes seeing was believing.

The train journey had been uneventful, and the conductor had told her she had to keep the two under control. Which was easier said than done.

They were about a day's walk from Romlan, and she was looking forward to being able to get some rest. She was faster by herself but she worried if she had moved at a faster pace the two would get lost.

-()-

Upon seeing Romlan Naruto's heart dropped. He thought they would be going to another city like the ones they had been to before. However the place was derelict, the walls had surrounded it were in ruin. The homes on the inside had been mostly destroyed, and the ground looked burned.

He watched as Clara strode through the streets of the ghost town until she made her way to the centre. The place wasn't very big, it was a bit smaller than the slums in Talron, and looked far worse. As she got to the centre she stood in front of what may have been a fountain at one point.

"I'm home" the children heard her say before she took a seat on the old fountain and waited for them to approach.

The two walked forward and waited for Clara to make her next move. They didn't know what they should do.

After a minutes Clara stood up after regaining her senses. "Follow me and we'll get you settled in" she said before she started walking again. She moved through the streets with a practiced ease until they came to what looked like an inn.

The building was two stories, the wood had rotted and the roof was in disrepair. There was fire damage around the windows on the ground floor. There windows were broken and the roof looked like it was ready to cave in. If the building had a door it was long gone.

"Be careful and mind your step." Clara said as she walked into the building.

Upon entering the building Naruto noticed that it was much worse than what he thought. There was what could have been a bar, there was scorch marks all around it and the wood was broken and rotten. There were holes in the floor with tables upturned and chairs broken and strewn around the place.

A few beams from the roof had fallen through, he could see the stairs on the far side looked a death trap. He followed Clara as she moved to the back room, with Kiva hot on his tail.

As they carefully moved through the debris they saw Clara standing at what looked to have been a manhole cover. She was shifting through her pockets looking for something.

"Come on where is it? I know I have it somewhere I went specifically to Urale to get… Ah here it is!" she exclaimed as she pulled out an obsidian dagger. Taking the dagger she placed it into what looked like a slot on the cover before twisting.

A loud Hiss rang through the empty building as the cover slowly popped up revealing a ladder. "Alright mind your step" she said as she dropped down the whole.

Both kids looked on in surprise at the sudden action, before they each started making their way down the ladder.

The tunnel was dark, the only light coming from the way that they entered. After a few moments though the sound of hissing was heard again and the light suddenly disappeared.

Naruto felt himself slip on the ladder as he missed his step, "FUCK!" he shouted as he clung on trying to right himself. This was immediately followed with the feel of Kiva's foot implanting him in the face.

"Sorry!" he heard her shout, "And hurry up I don't want to fall!" she finished. Naruto could only grumble as he tried to make his way down the ladder,

After a few minutes both children made it to the bottom, after some shuffling about for a moment they managed to stand side by side. They started to try and walk forward both using one hand on the wall to guide them, and holding each other's so they wouldn't get lost.

After a few minutes of travel the area they were in started to fill with light. It started off slow, so there eyes could adjust to it over time, by the time it was shining properly both kids had made it into a rather big hall. It was simple room, but unlike the outside the place wasn't destroyed. It did however look like it was recently lived in. Which the kids found strange considering everything else seemed to be nearly destroyed.

Both kids were impressed by the room; "Wow" was eloquent words.

Clara came walking in from one of the side passages and turned to the two children, "Okay I have some things I need to tell the both of you. But first you" she said pointing at Kiva. "Down that hall there is a room filled with different items. I want you to go find one you like and take it back here. Take your time."

Clara watched as Kiva left the room following her directions, upon leaving Clara turned to Naruto.

"Okay I have a very important question. Do you agree to this training?" She asked in a calm voice. She didn't mind if he said no. However, she needed him to understand once he said yes; there was no turning back. "Before you answer know this, once it starts it won't stop until it is over. You may hate me, curse me and bitch about it but there isn't much that can be done."

Before he could answer she walked over to him and got on her knees, looking him directly in the eyes she lifted the sleeve of his t shirt revealing the drawing that was made months ago. "This was the first step, but it can be undone after this what is done can't be undone."

Naruto wanted to say yes, he wanted to tell her that he would go through with the training, the last six months reinforced his want to never be powerless again. But before he could speak Clara continued talking.

"I have never taken an apprentice; you will be my first and probably only. If you agree to this, you will have to do everything I say without question until it is complete. You will not be the same as you were." There was a fierceness in her eyes if she was trying to make him cower to the idea of learning.

"What about Kiva?" was his first response, Naruto didn't like the idea of his friend not learning as well.

"I will teach her what I can, but she won't be my apprentice, she won't learn how to fight the same as you. Depending on what she brings, back will depend on what I will be able to teach her." She gave him a soft smile, _'He is a special person'_ Clara though as she watched his face calm at the knowledge that she wasn't leaving his friend out.

"If need be I will find someone to help teach her, it's like I said to you nearly a year ago. I will teach you all that I can. If you want to learn something else, I will help by either teaching you what I know or finding someone who does know. Now if you agree to this we will get started. Even if you don't want to be my apprentice I will find some other way to teach you, I gave my word that if you survived that I would teach you and I will keep it." After finishing her little tirade, she stood up and made her way over to the centre of the room.

Naruto stood silently for a minute thinking over what she had just said. Looking at the black drawing of the cloak and dagger he wondered what she had meant by she can take it away. Was there more to these drawings.

His head started to hurt from all the information. He just wanted to get stronger. He wanted to be able to protect himself; he wanted to be able to protect his friend. He had travelled far and survived in order to be trained by Clara, why was she trying to change the offer now?

But in the end it wouldn't matter, he had come far, he had survived. He wanted to become stronger, and if he became her apprentice he could do that. With that thought he made his decision.

"I want to become your apprentice." Naruto said, as he walked towards her. As he came to a stop he suddenly heard a loud shout form one of the halls.

"I found something!" Naruto turned to see his friend scurry into the room holding a wooden object. She had ran over to Clara and presented her find to her. "I like this!" she said in a high-pitched tone, Naruto wondered what had got her so excited.

Clara looked at the object that the little girl had brought back "Fuck Me of all the things" she couldn't hide her frustration, the girl had brought back a violin, _'Was there even a fucking violin in that room!'_ she mentally yelled.

She hadn't told her to pick a weapon because she didn't want to influence the girls choice, it was important. If Naruto didn't want to be her apprentice she would have had him do the same thing.

"Did I do something wrong?" Kiva asked, she didn't mean to make Clara angry she was asked to find something she liked, and this just stood out. It had looked really interesting and cool compared to all of the weapons in the room. The room had been filled with different things, swords, sticks, glass balls, and bows as well as other things she didn't know.

"No... No you did nothing wrong" she said trying to keep the frustration out of her voice, "I will have to think over a few things before I teach you how to fight." Righting herself she looked at Naruto.

"Since you have made your decision on what you want come with me and we will get started" she said as she started walking down one of the passages on the right.

-()-

Naruto moved along the corridor following Clara, he didn't know what to say, she seemed to be a lot more closed up then she had been. Maybe she didn't want to actually teach him. _'No she wouldn't have done everything she has if she didn't. Would she?' _He tried to reason in his mind.

Clara opened up a door at the end of the hall and motioned for him to enter, "take a seat in the centre circle.

Taking a seat Naruto watched as Clara went to the table in the room before opening the drawer and removing a long black blade, similar to the one that was used to open the entrance.

She took a seat in front of him. "Okay Naruto, I will repeat this one more time, I know you may be fed up hearing it but I need to make sure. Are you sure, you want to be my apprentice. Do you want to become an apprentice of the shadow?"

She started "Before you answer I want you to understand something, the markings that are on both your arms hold an importance, they are a connection to two of the many realms, and are important to your training, the gold one I will teach you about regardless. Once I put it on you it was already too late to take it off. The black one can still be removed. It is the realm that will allow you to become my apprentice. The reason I placed them on you so soon was because I knew you would succeed. And the body needs to adjust to the idea of being connected to a realm."

Naruto sat in silence listening to Clara's explanation of what would be required of him, it was a frightening, but he had made his decision, even if it was a scary Clara had done it as well and she seemed fine. By that logic, he thought that he would be able to survive it as well.

"Yes" Naruto answered her, "I will still be your apprentice" he tried to say with as much determination as possible.

"Hold out your arm." Clara said, as she lifted the black blade. As Naruto held out his arm she took one look at the design. She then made a slash along the design, drawing blood.

Naruto felt suddenly cold as the blade cut him, he screamed at the sudden pain. But as quick as it came it stopped, he could feel something moving along his arm, he watched as drawing brightened for a moment before darkening, some of the ink had moved into his wound and the drawing took a slight reddish tint for a moment.

"Rest up, you will begin your training tomorrow my apprentice." Naruto tried to get up before his legs suddenly gave out and he fell into the centre circle. He watched as Clara made her way to the door leaving him behind.

"Welcome to the order Naruto, now there are two," she said before leaving the room.

-()-

After leaving the room Clara made her way back to the main chamber to talk to Kiva, she had learnt a few things about the pair, when they were traveling together and she was glad that Naruto had managed to find a friend. It would make the next few years of his life easier if he had someone his own age to interact with.

She found Kiva sitting at one of the tables looking over the violin that she found, the little girl seemed happy with herself.

"So you like music" it wasn't a question.

Kiva turned around to look at the woman, "Yea, but I don't know how to play, can you teach me?" she asked. Her face had a big grin on it as she looked at Clara.

Taking a seat beside the girl she held out her hand for her to put the instrument into it, after receiving it she looked it over. It was in surprisingly good condition all things considering, Clara couldn't help but feel nostalgic.

"This belonged to an old friend of mine, she loved music she used to play all the time. I used to enjoy listening to her play." She said while looking at the strings.

"Who was she?" Kiva asked feeling the atmosphere in the room dropping, she wondered where Naruto had went to.

"Her name was Racheal, she was a member of a group I had joined once upon a time. She loved music and could do some amazing things with it" Kiva watched as Clara looked at the Violin while softly smiling.

"I can't teach you how to play it, but I can find someone who can. I will teach you what I can but Naruto is my apprentice. Though judging by your choice you wouldn't have made a very good apprentice." Kiva looked indignant at her remark.

"What? Am I not good enough for you?" Kiva nearly shouted, she was happy that Clara took her along but to be told that you were not good hurt.

"No, Naruto is my apprentice because it was what we agreed to, and I will only take one apprentice, I will still teach you, just not in all of the stuff I will teach him. But as to why I don't think you would have made a good apprentice is because of this." She said holding up the violin.

"Out of everything there that you could have chosen, you picked a something that is not used for either defence or offence." She spoke calmly. She wanted Kiva to understand that there was nothing wrong with her choice.

"That leads me to believe you may be better suited to support, I believe you can tell a lot about a person by their choices. I will tell you the same thing I told Naruto. If you want to learn, I will teach you, if I don't know the subject I will find someone who does. But I will only do this if you want to learn." She looked Kiva in the eyes before asking her question "So tell me girl, do you want to learn?" she said punctuating each word.

The only way that she could describe it was that there seemed to be pressure pushing down on her. Since meeting Clara Kiva would say this was the most seriousness that she had seen from the woman. If she was being truthful it scared her, she wondered if Naruto had experienced this as well.

But with Clara's question came a sudden realisation on Kiva's part _'learn what? I more followed because I didn't want to be alone. What have I gotten myself into?'_

Clara looked at the little girl in front of her, she couldn't help but think how she seemed so lost. She had just given her a choice that would affect her entire life, and she had no idea what to do.

Unlike Naruto where she had constantly tried to make him understand what was going to happen, Kiva was brought along because Naruto didn't want to leave a friend behind.

Kiva couldn't continue looking at the woman, she had no idea how she was meant to answer the question she asked, the only thing that was going through her head was _'What do I want to learn'_ she was broken from her thoughts when she felt something on her shoulder.

Looking back up she noticed that Clara had brought her into an awkward side hug, "It's okay not to know what you want. You're just a child." She spoke softly trying not to scare her, "When I was your age all I wanted was to survive. I did everything for that one idea, as I got older I tried to make something of myself, and as I got older again I wanted to live. I found that it was the most important thing. To live means you have a chance."

Shifting her position some more she brought the girl into a closer hug, she found it a little awkward. "Learn what?" the voice was soft and if Clara hadn't been so close to the girl she probably would have missed it.

"That is up to you, Naruto chose to be my apprentice and learn what I can teach him, if you want to learn how to use Rachel's violin I will find someone to teach you. If you want to learn how to defend yourself I will teach you." She spoke softly she could tell the girl was scared, she had only realised her position. It reminded her of how she had been in that hotel room with Naruto over a year ago.

"I would like that" she said keeping her head down, she spoke quietly, lifting her head to look at Clara she tried to smile, "I will do your friend proud!" she exclaimed happily. Clara smiled at the girl, she wondered what had caused all this to happen.

She had been travelling around just minding her own business and sticking her nose into others to make ends meet. Now she had two children one her apprentice and the other someone who wanted to take up the same role as one of her friends.

"All right then, there are rooms down the second corridor there, pick one and rest up. Tomorrow I will get you started with what I can. And by the end of the week I will go find someone to teach you the violin. But I will have you know one thing." She looked seriously at the girl the soft smile leaving her lips, and her rather hard features seemed to become firmer.

"As of tomorrow you will do as you are told and will listen to what I say and your instructor says. It will be this way until you are finished. I do not care if you hate me by the end this is the price. You don't get to back out once you agree. Do you understand?"

Kiva looked at her and that pressure that had left before was back, nodding her head she could only agree with what Clara had said. "I understand" with that she got up and followed Clara's directions to one of the rooms.

Clara watched as Kiva walked off in the direction of the living quarters, she couldn't help but smile as Kiva seemed to unconsciously tighten her hands around the violin.

"It seems that the next few years are going to be rather interesting. I wonder should I give her the mark for the other realm as well." She spoke to no one and was glad when there was no answer. Thinking it over though she would need to decide, "It would be useful in the long run if she could use it, Rachael wasn't a good fighter, and maybe it will help Kiva. I'll decide at the end of the month, there's no rush for her."

With that thought Clara decided that it would be best to go get some rest herself, tomorrow was going to be the start of a brand new day for all of them. She didn't know if she could actually teach them. But she would try. _'Naruto wants to learn so that won't be a problem, even if I suck at teaching I could probably just beat whatever he needs into him, and I will need to find a teacher for Kiva.' _ That thought brought her mood down, finding a teacher for the violin wasn't hard, finding a bard willing to pass on their knowledge was.

She only had a few people she could ask, out of those few she was only on good terms with one. But that was a problem for tomorrow, she would worry about it when she had to. Now sleep.

-()-

A.N

That's it for chapter six hope you enjoyed reading it.


	7. Chapter 7

The sound of shouting could be heard throughout the town of Ringland, it was a rather modest sized town, which was situated around a lake. It was primarily a farming town, which had many exports to some of the bigger cities. A little known fact however was the town had been a cover for drug operations in the cities. A man called Shelrif, an elf that had taken over the area a hundred years prior, ran it. The lake had a rather high concentration of magical energy. It was unknown what had caused this but it was there and Shelrif had taken advantage of it.

With the town under his control, he had increased the output of Rolium a hallucinogenic drug that was exceedingly addictive. Over the past twenty years, Rolium had become very popular. Being that it could be consumed due through eating, smoking, sniffing or injecting. Each offered different results, eating caused slow hallucination that would last for a long period. Smoking it brought about a buzz where the mind worked faster than body. Sniffing it offered the user a taste of actual magical energy that was accompanied by hallucinations. However, it was those that were injecting it caused the main problem. Injecting it directly into the blood stream offered the taste of magical energy and the increase in thoughts. The hallucinations were worse and the user became very unstable.

It is in the streets of Ringland that we find our young hero running away from the people following him. "Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!" the rather high-pitched voice of one Naruto Uzumaki could be heard. A sudden blast that hit the wood of one of the homes alerted him to the near miss.

Picking up his running pace he came to one of the buildings, not slowing down he ran upwards, as soon as he reached his maximum height he pushed his foot off jumping further up catching onto the gutter. Acting on instinct that had been pounded into him over the course of many months he braced on the wall before jumping right. The sound of a blast hitting the spot that he had previously been made him want to wipe his brow. Putting it off, he pulled himself up the slanted roof and ran at an angle towards the house on his right.

"Get the bastard!"

"Shelrif wants him alive!"

"You can't escape!"

These were the shouts that had greeted the boy as he made his by his standards daring escape. Naruto ran to the edge of the building before leaping to reach the next. As soon as he touched down however his foot broke one of the tiles. This caused a sudden domino effect. His right foot went into the roof which stopped his momentum, leading him to fall forward, face planting the tiles before he rolled downwards and falling from the two story building onto the ground.

'_God Damn that fucking hurt!'_ where his thoughts as he looked up towards the sky, the blue sky was suddenly blocked by five men. "Heh... heh Parley?" he managed to speak weakly.

One of the men got in front of his face before his vision went to black.

-()-

Shelrif was not happy, he had been in charge of this land for longer then its inhabitants had been alive, he was making quite the prophet from the town, and capable of securing some very lucrative deals and transactions throughout the entire country. Then out of the blue, someone had broken into one of his main plants. This wouldn't have been a big surprise, he had seen people break in trying to get a fix, they attempted to steal stuff and were easily put down. No the problem was that the person who had broken in had torched and destroyed three months of supplies.

To say that he was angry was an understatement, he was furious how someone had managed to achieve this. The biggest problem was that he did not know if he should publically kill him or offer him a job. Whoever it was; was most defiantly talented. Moreover, talent was not something he liked to squander.

"Sir we got the little bastard!" a man said at the door, Shelrif turned to look at the man dragging someone behind him in chains. Motioning his hand he came in with four other men and the person in chains. He had a brown bag over his head, he wore a burnt orange t shirt and green cargo trousers. There was a holster on his hip for a sword that had been taken away. He seemed to be relatively small about four foot something.

Shelrif was curious, the person seem rather short but he was two tall to be a Halfling, and to skinny to be a dwarf. "Remove the bag," he told the men. He couldn't' help but be surprised, they had brought him a human child, with bright blonde hair, blue eyes and six whisker like marks on his cheeks. He had a pair of green goggles around his forehead.

"You don't expect me to believe a mere boy broke into one of the plants?" if he wasn't angry he would of found there incompetence laughable, his men thought that it was a child, a child that stands out a mile could of broken in and torched one of the production plants.

"It was him sir" the man at the back said, he wore brown leather armour, a scraggly beard and hair that was a rusted brown. He drawled on the s' in his words.

"Are you sure Sean?" Shelrif asked, he could doubt most of the other men in the room, but Sean was smarter than the rest of them. He wouldn't vouch for something unless he was a hundred percent certain. Mistakes were bad, and cost more time to fix.

"Ay sir, I am. Didn't see how he got in but I saw him escape." Another reason he liked Sean, he didn't try and shift the blame, and you could take him at his word. A useful man to have around and he was quite skilled with the blade that he carried.

He looked at the boy on the floor, he looked as threatening as a mouse, and those whisker like marks made him look like an animal. Though he wasn't quite sure which.

"So what have you got to say for yourself boy?" Shelrif asked as he walked towards the child on the ground. He wasn't surprised by the boy's silence. The child was probably scared, _'He should be'_ Shelrif thought.

"Well if you're not going to speak up in your defence I think we can just kill you," he said as he motioned for the guard to dispatch of the boy. He hated wasting talent, but if the boy wouldn't talk by himself maybe the fear of death would make him.

The guard walked up to him, and drew his sword ready to strike down on him.

"Any second now would be nice" Shelrif heard the boy speak.

"A shame you seek for death, well might as well put you out of your misery, take his..." he stopped when his hearing picked up a noise.

It was a melody with a rather slow start it was quite hauntingly beautiful. The volume seemed to pick up it was becoming rather loud, but it still kept that same beauty to it. He noticed his own men had stopped what they were doing at the sound. He couldn't help but think that it seemed to suit the atmosphere of the room.

Trying to spot where the tune was coming from he looked towards the window. Perched outside the window was a ginger haired, half elf if he was right, playing a violin. There was a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Moreover, her face looked to be scrunched in concentration.

The music was suddenly accompanied by a rather loud scream, Shelrif turned around to find the guard that was about to execute the boy on the ground bleeding to death.

However what was more shocking was that the boy was on his feet holding the sword while the other four guards in the room had a far off look in their eyes, as if they were not paying attention to what had just transpired.

"So now that we won't be interrupted how are you?" Naruto asked Shelrif.

Shelrif was shocked, "What is it you want?" even if he was shocked by the boy, he wouldn't show it. He was a business man. He would conduct business. _'If the girls is doing this she can only hold it for so long, but why now?'_ he was trying to think what the boy's game was.

"ahh... I'm not really sure?" Naruto said as he scratched the back of his head. "I had taken this job because well I kind'a needed the money and figured why not."

"Well you seem quite the capable person even if you're what fourteen?" Shelrif wanted to stall he could kill the boy himself but he didn't really want to exert the effort. The girl would run out of steam, there was even the possibility that if the boy just wanted money he can hire him. If he was even half as competent as he seems he would be useful.

"Twelve!" he said with a big smile on his face, Shelrif watched as the boy's free hand started to play with the goggles on his head. It was a rather odd site, he was trying to hold a broadsword in one hand and play with the goggles using the other. What made the site seem surreal was that he still had the chains on his hand. In addition, every other movement seemed to block his line of site for a moment.

"If it's money that you want, come work for me, I can make sure someone with your potential is well looked after." He actually hoped the boy would agree, a twelve year old that was able to break into one of his production plants and torch it was skilled. And it was always better to take the skilled ones in then just kill them.

"Sorry, no can do. I was hired to destroy the production of this stuff." Naruto said, he was still smiling while he spoke. "Rolium is nasty stuff. I thought my luck ran out when I fell off that roof. But I guess I am rather lucky"

"Oh and why is that?" Shelrif asked curiously. It would be a shame to kill a skilled kid, but if he didn't want to join with him then it would have to be done.

"Well I was only going to torch the plants but now that I'm here!" he shouted with excitement.

Before he could ask another question three things happened, first Naruto pulled the goggles down to his eyes, there was a screech in the music before it started to become livelier and faster and finally a bang accompanied by a bright light entered the room.

Naruto shot forward he didn't have long, Kiva couldn't keep this pace up. It was a miracle that she had been able to catch so many with her song. Surprise was important Naruto knew that he only had one chance to kill Shelrif, even if the elf hadn't been a fighter in years he still had over ten times the experience he himself had.

He could feel himself feel lighter as he made his way forward. He heard the sound of metal and flesh. There was a sudden shout of pain before it became quiet.

By the time the flashed died down the music had stopped, acting as fast as he could he reached above his baggy shirt and pulled out a knife. He could feel the skin being ripped off as the knife came out. _'Note to self, use less duct tape next time.' _ Pulling the blade from its improvised sheath of cardboard, he then threw the knife at where he last remembered there being someone he hoped that he had managed to take out another.

He heard a shriek that was soon followed by a gurgle, as the light died down he could finally take a look around the room,Shelrif lay dead at his feet, Naruto had managed to get him in the confusion, there were two bodies on the floor, the guy that he had managed to stab and another that he threw the knife at, the knife was sticking out of the man's throat.

Now some would be happy with the sudden turn of events, going from six vs one to three vs one and not being injured would seem like a major success. However Naruto was tired, he had been running before he was taken here, he was sore from the fall and being ruffed up. He had cut the numbers in half only because they had underestimated them and Kiva had distracted all of them. He may not have been out of tricks but the three others were bigger, stronger, and had more experience. The only thing he could hope for was that he had more skill.

He noticed that the music had stopped playing, signalling that Kiva was nearing the end of her rope, he didn't have many options left. Before he could make a decision one of the guards shot forward. "You killed the boss! I'm going to gut you kid" he shouted, as he drew his sword and performed a downward slash.

The second guard shot forward and attempted to strike at Naruto as well. With his confiscated sword buried in Shelrif Naruto hadn't had the chance to reclaim it. He was immediately on the defensive. Jumping slightly back out of the way of the first man's strike. The second guard mad a sideways slash hopping to kill the child.

Taking his chance Naruto ducked low before throwing himself forward into a tumble. He tried to focus his mind on his next task, which was a lot easier said than done.

Sean watched from the back as his two comrades went to kill the child. The boy had shown potential in how he managed to not only get the drop on them by burning down one of the production plants, but also turning this situation around. For a twelve year old he was impressive. He was surprised by the boy's next move, he had lunged forward into a roll, ducking under the sword swing.

However it was what followed that was the surprising part, as soon as he touched the ground in front of one of the guards he seemed to flit between the two without touching them. Even for his small size Sean knew that the action wasn't natural. He watched as the boy stopped by his former employer and reached out to grab his sword.

After grasping the blade Naruto tried to catch his breath, the shadow step was tiring for him, Clara had told him it becomes easier to the point of second nature but he couldn't see how. Though it was definitely useful, the only drawback to the technique was that it was primarily for movement and could only work in short range and required him to be within feet of his target.

Drawing the blade he barely had a chance to parry the guards attack, he was outclassed in strength. There was no two ways around it. He was twelve and only started strength training a little over a year ago. But what he lacked in strength he made up for in reflexes, as the second guard attacked he made another deflection.

Making another shadow step he flitted around the opponent. The first guard to reposition himself, striking out he caught the guard on his exposed side. The man had managed to spin just enough to stop the blow from being fatal.

The Guard lashed out with his foot and caught Naruto in the gut. The kick sent him back a few feet, gritting his teeth in pain he tried to reorient himself.

Sean watched as the boy continued to hold his own against the two guards, _'that flitting movement looks annoying. A support technique? How does a child learn a support technique' _Sean thought as he watched the fight. _'The better question would be what is it a support for?'_ Turning from the battle he noticed that the girl was preparing something, he decided to brace himself so he wouldn't fall for her trickery again. _'Both will die here. Of that I am certain.'_

Naruto had been holding his own against the two, using superior reflexes that had been beaten into him over the years to defend himself against two stronger opponents. He wouldn't call them superior for if they had been he wouldn't be holding on for as long as he has. Then the music started again.

This piece was more in tune with the second piece, it was an uplifting melody that, he could feel himself become lighter, his movements swifter. The sudden boost in ability through the two guards, and in that brief moment Naruto made a swift strike to the first guard, catching him in the kidney.

The second guard became enraged at the fact that a child had been able to kill not only the boss, but three of his buddies. Striking out he over extended his reach and Naruto capitalised on his mistake.

Naruto was breathing heavy, he wasn't use to having to fight more than one person at a time, and having to repeatedly use the shadow step just to stop himself from being surrounded was taxing. He was broken from his respite when he heard a loud crash and a scream.

Spinning around he saw that the last guard had moved towards the window and tried to attack Kiva, he couldn't see her anywhere. He ran forward hoping to kill the man and find his friend. With no one alive and within range he couldn't shadow step the distance. The chains on his hand started to feel very heavy, but he pushed on, it wasn't that far of a distance.

Lunging at the man he could only watch as he spun around and parried the blade. "You are quite skilled" he said drawing out the 's'.

Unlike the other guards Naruto noticed quite quickly that this man knew how to wield the sword that he was using. The man made simple attacks with a practiced ease. After blocking the fourth attack Naruto managed to make a shadow step to the man's left flank, Sean spun around and struck at Naruto.

"A useful ability but it would seem that it is better suited when multiple people are in an area" he said as he made another quick stab. Naruto had never been more appreciative of his reflexes as he managed to deflect the blade to his right. With all his strength he ran forward, with his broadsword against his opponent's sword.

Using the element of surprise Naruto threw a closed punch at the man. Due to the height difference of Naruto being four foot four, and the man being five foot nine. Naruto was unable to try and strike him in the face. He was however able to punch the man in another area. That even though he was wearing leather armour the blow from the boy still had the desired effect.

However Naruto had hoped that he would have been able to hit harder than he had. After a gasp Sean made a quick retaliation by slamming the back of his fist into Naruto's face. He heard the bone break, and could feel the warm fluid slowly run down his face. As he was about to advance on the stunned child he suddenly felt his feet betray him. Falling to his knees it took a moment for him to hear the sound of music playing. _'That accursed girl is still there!'_ He shouted in his mind, he was becoming furious as the fight lasted.

Not only was the little bastard a good fighter for his age, but the girl would strike when you were focused on him. _'I knocked her off, how is she still there!"_ he shouted in his mind. The boy moved in for the kill. Pulling himself together he took a lunge at the boy tackling him to the ground. Wrapping his hands around the child's throat he planned to strangle him. It didn't matter how good the little brat was with a sword, he was stronger. And would snap the child's neck like a twig.

As he pinned the blonde boy to the ground he heard a loud shout from the girl "Naruto!" _'So that's the little bastard's name. I'll have to remember it.'_

Naruto was struggling, the man had him pinned and was currently throttling him, he could hear Kiva shout his name. He knew he didn't have long, the man would kill him for sure. Trying to focus his thoughts was hard. He felt his body being lifted upwards, "Ready to die brat?" the man snarled into his face. It was hard to do anything other than struggle. He tried to speak but the words wouldn't come out.

Sean looked at the boy trying his hardest to say something, pulling by his neck so that he could bring him closer to his face he loosened up a bit to let him says his final words, before he snapped his neck. He would let him suffer a little more.

Naruto feeling the pressure let up for a moment thanked whatever Devine was watching over him. Not wasting a moment gulped in some air before his hands shot towards the man's neck "PEFUVAT SBEPR!" he roared out.

Sean felt something slam directly into his throat, he dropped the boy and fell back. Loud coughing racked his body as he tried to take in air through the severely damaged neck. The same could be said for Naruto as soon as he hit the ground he had been struggling to breath. He was tired, he felt someone lift him slightly and looked to his side to see Kiva by his side helping him up. Naruto managed to recover first and took the initiative. Grabbing his fallen blade he lunged and drove it through the man's gut. When the light finally left the man's eyes Naruto lifted himself back up.

-()-

Kiva watched as Naruto pulled himself up, this was the first time that Naruto and her, were in a situation like this. It had been there first real job together. She watched as Naruto moved through the room, the adrenaline leaving his body. She couldn't help but wonder what would of happened if she had of been a moment later.

She had seen him fall from the roof, and had followed the group. When she saw where they were taken him she had tried to get a good vantage point to lend aid. Though the part that worried her the most was how Naruto had dealt with the situation.

It was no secret that Naruto was the fighter between the two of them, she plaid the role of support, she liked her role, but watching him move through the room she had to wonder how was he able to do it. He seemed so lost. It reminded her of his first kill.

-(Flashback)-

_1 year ago_

_The group of four were walking beside a caravan, Clara was standing at the back rather relaxed in her position, Kiva was on the left, Joshua was at the right and Naruto was leading by order of Clara. They had been a rather small party for a few years, Joshua had been the person that Clara had found in order to help teach Kiva how to play the Violin and use the instrument to help support her comrades. _

_He was a tall man, about five foot eight with black hair, brown eyes and a rather soft face. He usually wore rather fancy clothing, not expensive and lavish. But fancy, he liked bright colours and always had a smile on his face._

_The small group had been traveling for two days, and it would take another two days to reach their destination. The sun was setting and they would begin to prepare to make camp soon. It was at the point when they were getting ready to stop that the bandits attacked. _

_It was only a group of about six, they three had moved from the front and three from behind. Kiva was stunned she didn't know what to do, she had been training to help her friend, but this had been different from when they were in Talron. There it was moving to survive, now they were to take the offense._

_The first thing she noticed was a rather soft tune that filled the area, Joshua had started playing his small harp. The melody soothed her and helped release the fear. She turned to help Naruto, she knew Clara would be able to take care of herself. _

_She wasn't sure how long she had been afraid before Joshua's song calmed her. It seemed to have happened so fast. One minute the bandits were there the next they were dead. The caravan had scattered though._

_She didn't remember the fighting, she didn't even remember hearing fighting. But what she did remember was the sight of Naruto. The bright happy boy that was her best friend seemed to have lost that light, he was walking forward one step in front of the other. _

_She had to run to catch up to him, they weren't meant to be moving on they were going to set up camp and rest. It wasn't hard to catch up to him though. She had quickly spun him around to tell him they had to go back. Her words died in her throat as she saw his face. It looked empty, she had seen him filled with rage, joy, happiness and sorrow. But she had never seen him look so empty._

"_I'm sorry" he had managed to choke out, "I didn't mean to it just happened" Kiva watched as tears came to his eyes before he turned round and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground. "I'm… I'm a monster" he managed to get out through his heaving._

_She didn't know what to do, her friend was breaking down and there was nothing she could say, she tried to think of all the stories that Joshua taught her, all the different ways that words can be used to help any situation and none would come to her. She felt tears come to her eyes, as Naruto lifted his face she took notice of the blood on it and the slight cuts._

"_You're not a monster" she didn't know where the words came from but it was the only thing that she could think to say. _

"_She's right Naruto" she heard Clara speak from behind her. She nearly jumped at the sudden words. "You are not a monster because you killed, your actions now prove that. You feel regret, remorse and sickness from what you did. It is normal" she was speaking in what Kiva and Naruto dubbed her lecturing tone._

"_Taking your first life is not easy, and being in this line of work means that you are more likely to have to take lives. Sometimes it can be as simple as this it's either them or you. Others can be because it's part of the job. There are many reasons why one will have to take a life, it's just the way the world works." She spoke as she walked forward._

"_Does it get easier" Kiva heard Naruto nearly sob out. _

"_Yes, it will become easier as time goes on. And as time goes on you will find that there are certain things that you may consider doing that you wouldn't when you are younger. So understand this." She stood in front of the two kids._

"_The world is grey, there is no black or white, what is evil to some is fine to others, and what you call good, others may call evil. But I believe that in this world we all have to draw our own line. It is the line that we are not willing to cross. It doesn't have to be some grand idea, myself, I use a simple one but I believe that it to be the most important 'Children are off Limits' it is up to the individual to draw his our own line though." When she had finished speaking she lowered down to give both children a simple hug._

"_But I am proud of you today, you managed to fight well, and Kiva don't worry about freezing up. Sometimes the first mission can be the hardest." She said lightly._

"_Will I have to kill?" she had managed to ask quietly._

_Clara looked her over, "I don't know, I don't know if you will have to kill. But if you do remember what I have said today. It is a part of the job, but only you can decide whether you will take a life. Just be aware that even though you may not be willing to. That doesn't mean the enemy won't do it to you." With her words said Clara left the two alone._

_Both kids had stayed in silence after that, both thinking over the words that they had heard, both coming to a different conclusion on what they would do. And thinking what would be there line that they wouldn't cross._

_-(Flashback end)-_

Kiva was brought out of her reminiscing when she heard something hit the ground, turning around she saw that Naruto had been by Shelrif's desk before he had fallen over. She quickly pulled herself out of thoughts and went to check on him.

Upon inspecting the blonde she concluded that he was just tired from fighting. Rolling him onto his back she finally took a good look at him. He had gotten some small cuts and his nose was broken. Setting about she quickly tried to fix his nose, before cleaning the wounds and bandaging them.

She could only do a temporary job until they got out of Ringland and somewhere a little better suited. Reaching into her top she pulled out a vile, popping the lid she had to pour it into his mouth while messaging his throat to help him swallow it. It was a simple potion that helped to give the user energy and speed up recovery. It was useful for situations like this, if he paced himself he could get a few hours out of it before he collapsed. If he didn't he might only get minutes.

After a few moments she watched as his eyes fluttered open. "Welcome back, you look like you had a good sleep" she said.

Naruto let out a very fake sounding laugh, "Har Har, fuck me I'm tired, how are you?" he asked while trying to rub his eyes. He scowled at the chain still on his hand, he was lucky that it had been relatively long.

"A little winded, alternating between the two melodies is rather taxing, luckily I seen you fall or I don't know what would have happened." She had been rather worried when she had heard the chase and when she had seen Naruto fall off the roof she had to keep herself composed which was no easy feat.

"You were worried I was there wondering what the hell I was going to do. If I hadn't seen your hair I would have ripped that knife off my chest sooner." He wasn't beyond admitting the fact that he had been scared. It was one of Clara's many lessons to him _'Being afraid is normal, a lack of fear shows a lack of common sense. But just because something scares you does not mean that you can't fight it.'_ It was kind of corny but the point was simple, you will feel fear, that is normal, it is how you react to it is important.

"So what now?" Kiva asked breaking him from his thoughts.

Naruto looked around the room, "Well you loot whatever you can while I deal with these" he said holding up his hands. "Then I guess I'll have to take proof and then I'll loot what I can. Sound good"

With that the two separated Naruto started by looking through the pockets of the first man he killed to find the key while Kiva started to search the room for anything of worth. After unlocking the chains he started to inspect some of the swords that where in the room, he had lost his when they had caught him.

He found a relatively decent blade belonging to the red haired man. It was well balanced and had a good edge. More than enough for him. After ten minutes the two went over what they had found.

"Okay I got about one gold piece and forty silver, I found a carrier bag as well that I will be putting to good use. You?" Naruto asked.

Kiva had a smile on her face, "one hundred gold pieces, three hundred silver, this box that I can't open and a decent looking ring. I win" at her words Naruto hung his head.

"Okay one last thing before we go." Naruto said before he walked over to the window and tore off the curtain. Walking back to Shelrif he lifted one of the other swords that was on the ground. Composing himself he swung down as hard as he could at the dead man's neck. With a resounding clash Naruto separated the man's head from his body before wrapping it up in the curtain and putting it into the carrier bag.

As soon as he had finished he walked over to a plant that had been in the room and emptied the contents of his stomach. It was one thing to kill him during a fight it was another thing to take proof after the fight was over.

Kiva stood in silence as she watched her friend throw up. She didn't have any words for him, she knew the only way to make it not as hard on him was to do it herself, but she couldn't do that. She didn't know how Naruto was able to harden his heart at times. She knew that they lived in a grey world. And while she may never have killed anyone with her own hands she had been the one helping him do it.

But at times like this she wondered how Naruto was able to harden himself.

After emptying the contents of his stomach Naruto turned to Kiva, "all right I am honestly surprised that no one has come here yet so we need to make a break for it." He said as he moved towards the window. "So let's go."

Kiva watched as he climbed out the window and stared to climb down the side of the building, taking one last look at the room she took in the carnage that they had left in their wake before following.

-()-

The pair had travelled slowly until they had managed to get out of the town, they had heard a loud bustle coming from the general area that they had left it seemed as if they had found the bodies of their employer and guards.

The journey had actually been uneventful which both highly appreciated, two kids walking down the street didn't throw off too many warnings for people, they were probably looking for some adults.

It had been three hours outside of the village before the effects of the potion wore off and Naruto dropped from exhaustion. Kiva set up camp for them to continue onwards in the morning, Naruto needed rest and giving him another potion would have caused worse exhaustion later.

After resting for the night the two set off to get to a trading station about three days walk. The trading station had the only train in the area. A two day journey by train would cut their travel by near a month, and would bring them to a two day walk of their destination.

The only problem with trains was the cost, it was nearly fifty pieces of silver for a day's journey. Which meant that for both of them it would cost two gold pieces to travel. Naruto had never been more thankful for Kiva finding the money, he had not been looking forward to hauling around a head for over a month. The travel out to Ringland had been rather tedious.

And so we find our pair of wayward travellers sitting in a train compartment.

"So you open the box yet?" Naruto asked from where he was relaxing in his seat, the compartment was rather simple, two bench seats sitting opposite each other, a table in the centre and a rack above to hold luggage. There was a window looking out at the rolling landscape. The pair had gotten a few looks when they produced the money for the tickets. But in the end very few cared, money was money to them.

Kiva looked around her stuff before pulling out a wooden box, it was a foot long, six inches wide and 3 inches in height. There was a small lock on the front of it. Turning it around, she showed Naruto the lock before fishing out a small pouch. "Mind opening it?" she said passing the tools over the table.

"Fine, if I have to" he said as he opened the pouch revelling different small tools. After about thirty seconds of work the locked clicked open, while he may have been curious about what was in the box Kiva had found it so she had the joy of opening it. Though that rule had backfired on the both of them before. Where they had found a box with severed limbs, or eyes that were gouged out. It only happened twice, but they learnt to be wary of what they open where orcs were concerned.

Kiva tentatively opened the box, she didn't know what would be in it but was hoping that it was something nice. When she seen what was in it her face fell slightly, it did look nice the inside of the box was lined with red velvet, there was six blades, knives that looked absolutely beautiful with how they were crafted. The only problem was that she didn't really want them.

She turned the box around to Naruto "You want some new knives?" she asked, she planned on keeping the box however, it looked nice and could be used to store some of her own stuff.

Naruto looked at the blades in the box, there were three daggers and three throwing knives it seemed like an odd collection to have. He looked at Kiva to see if it was alright, he knew she didn't like them, she had her own knives and throwing knives but she very rarely ever used them, just enough to not get rusty and they were a last resort in a fight, a resort she had yet to need.

"Are you sure?" He asked, it was hers by right, since she had found it. Though if the option came down to selling something it was common courtesy to make sure that neither of them wanted it. It didn't happen often, usually this just sold some of the crap and split the money.

"Yea you probably like them more, and it's either that or sell them." Naruto smiled as he picked up his new weapons. The rest of the journey had been made in quite as they both rested from the whole ordeal.

-()-

"So where are you meeting this guy?" Kiva asked they were looking for the meet up point so that they could claim the job being done.

"A tavern called 'Earls Back' it's in the lower east end I think." He wasn't too sure on the exact position of the place, but that was half the journey.

After walking for an hour the pair had finally found the place. There was only one word that either could come use to describe the place, dive. The Earls back looked like the worst tavern you could find. It honestly looked like someone had decided to make the most clichéd dive tavern they could. The dark wood and dirty cracked windows were horrible. The banisters around the front had nicks and cracks in it. The place looked dirty, and the door on it seemed to have been shabbily repaired recently.

Naruto put his thoughts behind him and decided to enter the place, he had been pouring fragrances into the bag to make sure that any smell had been covered up and now he just wanted rid of the damn thing.

Upon entering the place both were surprised that they didn't stumble into the middle of a fight, giving how clichéd the place looked they were expecting the theme to continue.

The inside was the same dark wood as the outside, and everything still seemed dirty, there was smell of stale smoke in the air. The place was nearly empty a bar tender, and two patrons one at the bar drinking, and one in a booth drinking and smoking.

Making their way into the tavern Naruto walked up to the bar, "is Kreia here?" he asked. The bartender took one look at him and said "Who wants to know?"

Naruto started to rummage through his pockets, after a moment he pulled out a worn piece of paper and handed it over to the man.

Looking it over he looked back at him, "they're getting younger all the time" he said in a low voice before speaking up. "She's upstairs third door on the left." With that Naruto and Kiva went up the stairs.

They came to the room and Naruto knocked on the door, after a few moments the door opened slightly a rather bloodshot grey eye peered out through the crack. After a moment of silence the door opened fully.

Standing in front of the pair was a woman in her mid to late twenties, she had light shoulder length brown shoulder length hair that was greasy and tangled, her clothes were dirty and her eyes bloodshot. All in all Naruto would say she hadn't changed in the past month.

"So you came back to tell me it couldn't be done" her voice was hoarse it sounded like she hadn't done much talking in a while. Considering the state Naruto had seen her in a month ago and how she stilled looked the same he wasn't surprised.

Kreia wasn't surprised that the boy was back, he had agreed to try and destroy that bastards stuff for her, and the only reason she even agreed to it was that she was in such a depressed and drunk state that she hadn't realised that she had agreed to something until the following day. She was glad he gave up though Shelrif had taken a lot away from people from his drug running. A child did not need to be in the middle of it. She had tried to find him when she realised what she done, but he was already gone. She had remembered that they had agreed to meet at this tavern when it was done, so she had spent the last month here.

"No!" Naruto shouted at the woman. "I said I would ruin him and held up my end of the deal." He said as he dropped the bag on the ground.

Kreia was surprised by his words, she reached down to lift the bag wondering what the boy had done. "Originally I tried to burn down his production plants but that went south after the first one." That surprised her he had actually managed to do something to harm the elf, opening up the bag she noticed there was a bundle in it and had smelled very weird. Upturning the bag the bundle fell to the ground with a loud meaty thump.

She was confused, what had he done, "You were meant to ruin him!" Kiva shouted, Kreia looked at the girl and the object on the ground, whatever he had done was more than he was meant to.

"We took the opportunity when it presented itself" Naruto defended himself. "I told you what the job was why you are so surprised?" He couldn't understand what the problem was.

Before Kiva could respond there was a loud shriek from Kreia. Both kids turned round to see her covering her mouth trying to stop herself from throwing up at the sight of the severed head.

"That's why! You didn't have to carry that around if all you had to do was to ruin him, word would have spread within the week!" She could forget that, for all that he was good at Naruto was a bit of an idiot. "Proof of death is only for jobs that require you to kill the target. Even I know that!" She was exasperated by him. She couldn't help but think that Naruto had to make life harder for himself. Cutting off the head had taken a lot out of him, and he didn't have to do it.

"What is this?" Kreia was stunned she was looking at the severed head of some elf, that bit of information took a moment to process, _'He couldn't have'_ she thought as she looked at the head. Tears were starting to build up in her eyes at the thought that the person who took so much from her through his dealings was gone.

"It's Shelrif, well a part of him" Naruto said rubbing the back of his head in mild embarrassment.

Kiva watched how he acted, she couldn't help but notice that he was able to bounce back faster and faster after each kill. He would mourn what he did for less and less, she was happy that he wasn't sulking for weeks now. But she was afraid that he may stop mourning altogether, which was something she didn't want. She liked Naruto the way he was. He had a big heart and although he could harden it he was always trying to be nice to others.

"Ho… How… Why?" Kreia choked out, she didn't know if she was meant to be appalled by what she seen or happy that Shelrif was dead.

"Well you asked me to do a job and so I did it, are you sad, I'm sorry if I went too far but you didn't tell me not to kill him" Naruto was confused, he didn't know why Kreia was sad, she had said how Shelrif had ruined her life, it was through his supply of Rolium that had killed her son. It was through some of the local pushers of Rolium killed her husband. So why was it bad if he got rid of Shelrif? If he was in her position he would have wanted him dead.

"Thank… Thank you, I'll… I'll sort out your payment" she didn't know why she had even said it, but looking at the boy she had wanted to get out of his presence. She didn't hate him, and it wasn't that she was scarred of him. It was the fact that this boy had went and killed for her, it was her fault that child younger then what her own son had been had just killed someone. She felt guilty about the action and just wanted to go back to crying, not only for her loved ones but the child's innocence that her grief had taken.

She walked into the room in a daze, going over to her bag she pulled out the remainder of her savings. She had said when would pay ten gold coins, it was all the money that she had. It had been a small reason why she wanted him not to go through with the job. It was nearly all the money she had left. Considering how much she had been eating this past while she could stretch it for over six months, she walked back and handed the small pouch of coins over.

Naruto opened the pouch and took a look inside to make sure everything was in order, though he couldn't help but notice how the woman winched when she handed him the pouch.

Kiva watched as Naruto looked through the pouch as if checking for something, before he tossed the pouch back at the woman. She was shocked by the action, _is something wrong, she better not be trying to cheat him.'_ She was worried if the woman was trying to cheat him in the deal.

"Keep it, you asked me to ruin him not kill him." He said before looking down, he scratched his head sheepishly while looking at the head on the ground "Ah… you want me to dispose of that?"

Kreia nodded her head as she was shocked by the boy's actions. She watched as he picked the head up stuffed it back in the bag and left. As she watched the pair leave in silence. After five minutes of standing there she decided that she was going to get something from downstairs. She opened up her pouch to take out a coin. When she pulled out the coin on the top she was surprised to see a silver piece.

She dumped the contents of the bag on the bed, wondering if he swapped the coins, she didn't know how he could have done it. Though she didn't understand why he would do it, it had been his payment. Looking at the coins she noticed that there were silver pieces thrown out it. She started counting the coins when she realised that she now had fifteen gold pieces and fifty silver.

She couldn't believe what had happened, she had sent a child out to ruin a man when she was depressed and drunk. Not only did, he comeback but he had effectively did the maximum amount of damage to him. And to top it not only had he not taken the payment but actually left money for her. She couldn't understand it.

-()-

"So why did you do it? Wasn't the reason you took the job because we needed money?" Kiva asked her friend as they were walking through the street. She had been surprised that Naruto used a loop whole in his own wording to get out of receiving payment. He would honour an agreement, she didn't know where he had picked it up. Maybe it was from something Clara had said to him. However, it was proof that he still had that big heart. He got out of his own agreement, not only keeping face but also giving the woman money as well.

"Because now we don't need the money as much as we did then, and she couldn't afford it." He said simply. "I'm willing to bet when she agreed to it, she agreed to use all her remaining money."

"Isn't it only fair to be paid the agreed upon price?" she asked curious why he would change his mind when it came to the job. It had been the first one they had ever taken by themselves.

"Yea, but, I don't know. I just didn't like the idea of taking everything from her. If she had of been scum, or someone just wanting to muscle in on Shelrif's territory then I wouldn't have minded charging an arm and a leg." He said as his hand rubbed at the bottom of his chin, indicating that he was thinking. "But she was mourning her losses when she agreed to it. It just… it just felt wrong" was all he could say.

"Aw you're nothing but a big softie!" Kiva shouted as she jumped onto his back, "Now mush I want to find a decent place to sleep tonight before we head back." Kiva was happy at his words, she didn't want him to become cold and heartless. She wanted her friend to be the same as he always has been.

-()-

Omake

Reaction Training

Naruto had woken he had found himself in the centre of a circle, the memories of the previous night coming to mind where he had officially become Clara's apprentice. He was looking forward to today, he would begin his training.

As he left the room he wondered what cool things Clara would teach him now that he was her apprentice.

He came into the main chamber were he found Clara waiting for him.

"Okay now that you're up I am going to cover one basic thing, you will start your days at 6am, and you will be trained until 5pm, with breaks throughout the day. From 5pm until you go to bed you will have self-study, there you will learn anything that you wish to learn. Right now I know that it won't be much, but as time progress you will find things that will interest you. I will help where I can, and if I can't help I will find someone who can." She spoke in calm clipped voice that left no room for arguments.

Naruto wondered what self-study was but he figured it would be like when he was reading about the realms, it would have to be things that didn't relate to being her apprentice.

Not hearing any forms of complaints she then asked "Any questions?"

"Self-study?" he thought he knew but he wouldn't mind being told.

"There are books on different aspects of nearly everything here, they have been collected throughout time and is quite a well-built library, if not very disorganised, over three quarters of them were probably never opened or had been forbidden but that's another story.. You will have the chance to learn whatever else you want to learn. Anything else?" She said.

"What you going to teach me first, some cool attack or someway to make all your enemies cower in fear?" he asked excitedly.

Clara smiled at the boy, Naruto noticed that it was different from the other smiles she had given him. This one was a smile that seemed sweet but held no warmth, "Well that's simple, it's one of the most important things you can ever learn."

At those words Naruto was very eager, if it was going to be useful to him then he wanted to learn it. If he only knew what was about to happen he would already be running.

Without any further word Clara dashed at him and threw a kick for his stomach "Dodge!" she shouted.

Naruto was unable to follow the command and got kicked backwards ten feet.

-()-

It had been three weeks since his training had started and he was not having a good time, he enjoyed most of it, there was running, and learning how to fight using his hands and a blade. There was a lot of reading and Clara was teaching him how to use the shadows to move from one place to another.

It was currently 6pm and he was reading a book on weapon fighting, his reading was soon interrupted by a loud shout. "Dodge!" before he felt his face slam into the book.

-()-

It was on the second month of his training and he believed he was getting the hang of certain aspects of the training. He was currently walking to his room in order to go to sleep for the night.

"Dodge!" the shout came, Naruto immediately threw himself to the side to get away from the kick.

"Very good it only took you two months" he haired Clara say.

Turning around he say the woman standing in front of him, he couldn't help but smile that he had made her proud. He had been trying his hardest to make her proud of him. Then he noticed that smile. The same one that she had when she had first told him to dodge.

He felt a very sudden pressure on his chest and he was thrown back 10 feet from another kick.

"I guess that it is time to step up the training" and with that she left him.

-()-

Kiva was sitting at the table in the main hall enjoying her breakfast, Joshua was still asleep and would not be up for another hour. She noticed that Naruto and she had two different training regiments, the only time they actually trained together was during a spar everyday where they would both have to fight Clara. It was brutal, she wondered if the woman ever held back. However they got to work together more in their free time, while they were both studying different things they tried to always help the other out.

She watched as Naruto came running into the room, he was running at full pelt as he slid under the table. Loud thumps drew her attention to the knives that had hit the table where Naruto had slid under.

The sound of a loud bang drew her attention again as Naruto rolled out from under the table followed by smoke and ran forward. It wasn't an odd sight, what was odd about it though was that he was running to her. She had a very bad feeling about this.

Suddenly Clara appeared in front of her. As a blade lashed out at Naruto, she watched him slide beneath the blade and tap her. "You're it!" he shouted.

Before she could register what had happened she say Clara spin around with a smile on her face "Dodge!" she shouted as a kick lashed out.

The next moment happened very fast for her, she watched as Naruto dropped to the ground and the kick went over him, before continuing on. She suddenly felt a heavy force collide with her chest pushing her off her seat. Then the world went black.

"I don't think she was expecting that" Clara said looking at the now unconscious girl. "Guess I'll have to properly include her in the game. Until then you're it again!" she said as she threw a knife at Naruto catching him in the arm. _'Fuck that will put some training on hold, well guess more reaction training is needed'_ she said in her mind. She hadn't meant to actually hit him with the knife.

She approached Naruto to pull the knife out for him, she watched as he quickly and with a loud shout of pain ripped it out of his arm and through it at her.

"Clever boy" she said as she watched Naruto run off, _'Probably away to get Joshua to help with his arm.'_

Picking up Kiva she decided to wake the poor girl up.

-()-


	8. Chapter 8

The pair were standing in the old tavern within Romuland that hid the access to the guild. The place had changed slightly over the years. The tavern was being rebuilt, and was looking in much better condition than it had when they first got there. The reason for the renovations was because Clara said it would be good training.

She justified this by saying it would help with strength building among others. Naruto not wanting to disappoint took to it with gusto… for about two days. Two hours of everyday were spent cleaning the rubble and then it was all day Sunday. Kiva had been helping where she could but it was mainly left up to him.

It had taken him four weeks and a broken rib before he realised the second part of the training. Clara has always worked on his reactions, so it hadn't been a surprise that she had continued to beat him mercilessly when he was meant to be working on his strength and repair the ruined building.

He had one day decided to hide caltrops around the area he was working in, Clara had stood on one. This lead to him being very confused at why she was congratulating him for doing it. She had been wondering how long it would take him to start trapping the area.

She had explained it as, 'if you know that someone is going to attack you in a specific area, then it is up to you to make sure that it is not going to be easy.'

The reason the pair was standing in the tavern though was because Naruto had to remember where all the traps were. The building may have looked in good shape but it was also filled with traps that was to protect and alert him not if, but when Clara was going to strike.

"Just follow my steps and don't worry about it." Naruto told Kiva as he slowly moved through the room. He had managed to make it half way through the room until his foot broke through the floor board. Throwing himself forward he heard the knives impact on the wood around him.

He righted himself and moved to the left to get around the next trap, he felt the board underneath him give way slightly he moved back quickly before it was suddenly broken by a bear trap.

His only thought was 't_hat's not mine!'_ it didn't take him long to realise what had happened, Clara had set up counter traps around his safe areas. Acting fast he took out one of his new knives and through it at the wall a little further ahead while shouting "hit the dirt!" Hearing the knife embed itself in the wall Naruto dropped to the floor. The knives flew over his head and the thudding of them hitting wood echoed through the empty building.

"What the hell Naruto!" Kiva shouted, as she picked herself up from the ground.

"The place is trapped" he said.

Kiva couldn't believe what she heard. It sounded near ludicrous, especially considering he had said it in as serious tone as he could have. "NO SHIT YOU TRAPPED IT!" She shouted at him.

Realising his mistake Naruto rubbed the back of his head, "I mean, Clara trapped my safe zones." He said.

Realisation hit Kiva like a ton of bricks, Clara had went and trapped the entire area, which meant that Naruto not only needed to navigate them through his, but avoid Clara's new traps. "So that's what the knives were." She said not knowing why she bothered stating the obvious.

"Well you see the last set where mine, I just activated it prematurely hopping to make a new safe path." He said still rubbing his head.

"So the first set where Clara's then… "She stopped speaking when she heard him lightly chuckle. She knew that chuckle, that was his 'I may have accidently set some of your clothes on fire' or 'well it wasn't that big of a bear' the one he has when he knows he has done something wrong and hopes you don't bring it up again. "What? She asked.

"I may have forgotten where all of mine are" he said nervously.

She looked at him incredulously "what?" she couldn't believe it, it had to be a bad joke that he was trying to pull. The only response that she heard was that chuckle. "So not only do we have to navigate Clara's traps, but also be on the lookout for yours because you don't know where they all are."

"No" was Naruto's reply as he started walking forward. "Were going to avoid my safe zones and disable my traps, Clara set up traps to counter me, so she is probably forcing me somewhere."

He kept moving in a straight-line, every so often he wound pop a floor board to where he had a trap, or cut a piece of wire that was barely visible. It took twenty minutes but they managed to make it from one side of the inn to the other.

After finally reaching their goal, Naruto withdrew an obsidian knife and placed it into the manhole cover before twisting.

The pair made their way down into the chamber. They were greeted by the sound of soft music playing, at the sound Kiva's mood picked up after the fiasco that was getting in.

Naruto watched as Kiva moved with a spring in her step getting to the main chamber as fast as she could without running.

When Naruto entered the main chamber, he saw Kiva talking rapidly with Joshua. Joshua had been there to help Kiva not long after he started his own training. The man was very talented; he could play songs that would make Kiva's skills look like a child. It would seem like a correct statement Kiva was still a child but Kiva herself was exceptionally talented with a violin. Within eight years Kiva could do things that took some people twice that amount of time. Though part of that stemmed just from how much training and practice she had.

"How'd it go?" he heard a voice coming from his left, turning around he saw Clara leaning against the wall. She was in her usual leather duster; she didn't look to have aged a day since he had met her.

"It was alright, got a job done and made quite a bit of money." He answered her. He could feel her eyes on him.

"Follow" she said before walking down one the corridor that leads to the main study.

He followed her into the room, it hadn't changed much over the years, she fixed up the table and made it a little more homely but other than that it still looked the same.

She took a seat behind the table while he took his normal position in the centre circle. "What's wrong? I know when something is bothering you."

Naruto looked down at his hands, he had told Kiva that he was all right but the more he thought about it, the more he felt sick with what he did. "I took a proof of kill" he managed to whisper out.

"In combat or outside combat" she asked simply, she had a feeling which one he had done but she wanted to make sure.

"Outside." He said simply, he could remember the blood, the sound of the sword cutting through the neck. However, most of all he could see the body, every time he closed his eyes he saw headless body lying there.

Clara sat for a moment waiting to see if he would say anything else. When the silence started to become awkward she decided to speak. "Proof of kill isn't easy, especially after the fighting is finished, however, it is necessary at times."

"But it wasn't necessary" he managed to whisper out. That was the crux of his problem. When he found out it wasn't necessary he just tried to play it off. But it was eating him up inside at what he had done.

"I'm sorry" she didn't know what else to tell him, to her it was part of the job. You sometimes needed to prove that you had killed who you said you would kill, you needed it for bounty hunting. It was a way of life to her. It was at times like this she remembered that Naruto was a boy, he wasn't prepared for the world that he had joined and no matter how much she taught him he would only become ready through experience.

"Every time I close my eyes I see it!" he shouted out, his eyes were burning, he wanted the memories to go away. He wished he could forget about what he had done.

"You'll see worse." Her reply was soft, she could shout at him but that wouldn't help. "You'll do worse. This is the way the world is."

Naruto set listening to her, he was hoping that she would tell him something that would make him feel better about what he had done.

"I never told you what happened to the guild did I?" she asked, she looked at the inquiring look on his face, he shook his head in the negative.

"As you can tell from the building the guild use to be much larger then it is today, there are now only two of us." She paused for a moment trying to think of the best way to tell the story.

"Back when I joined I was taken in by one of the masters at the time. His name was Riley, he found me after an incident and decided that I needed help. He asked me the same question I asked you, 'Why do you seek power?' do you know what my answer was?" She asked looking at him expecting.

Naruto thought about the question, what would Clara want power for, a few possible answers came to his head, to fight, to be the best, or to be able to protect. But out of all of them the he didn't know which would be correct. So he shook his head in the negative.

"Power, I wanted power for the sake of having power." She let out a mirthless laugh at her own answer; she truly had been stupid then. "When Riley found me I was going through a very bad time in my life. I was lost and he took me in. I wanted power to have power, for there was nothing else in the world that mattered at that point." She could not help but feel ashamed of herself when thinking about it. "I was stupid." It came out as a whisper, but it travelled clearly through the silence.

Naruto didn't know what to say, Clara had taught him about not seeking power for the sake of power. Moreover, here she was stating that she had done it herself. A small part of him realised that was how she knew. The only thought that went through his head was "why?" he asked out quietly.

"I've forbidden you from claiming revenge on Dolton, because I know that revenge gets you nowhere. Everyone loses something precious to them at some point." She spoke softly but her words carried inevitability to them.

"After I joined the guild, I trained to become powerful, I was given the tools that I needed did the jobs that I was asked to do. I never questioned anything. I was getting exactly what I wanted... power. Riley tried to help me, but I didn't listen. It wasn't until I left the guild for a long period of time that things started to change." She had a wistful look on her face as she remembered her time away from the guild.

"I spent years travelling, fighting, doing odd jobs here and there, just really living. I met people grew close to them laughed with them, fought with them, and bled for them. I did great and horrible things. I saw how far I would go for something. I learnt the lines that I would cross and the lines I wouldn't." She couldn't help but think about the lives that she ended, the ones she saved. The ones she failed. _'I've failed a lot of people before I joined the guild; I failed a lot of people after I left the guild.'_

Naruto set in rapt attention at her words; though there was one thought that went through his head _'How old is she',_ Clara hadn't looked to have aged a day since he had met her. And the way she spoke was as if this was a long time ago.

"But when I came back to the guild, that's when the problems started to set in. I had changed a lot since I left. My fighting style blended other aspects then what they taught. I blended magic into my attacks; I had done some things that the older masters weren't happy about. I was change in a very stoic guild, the younger ones agreed with me, the older ones didn't like it." Her face morphed into a look of mourning.

"Do you know what happens when a guild of Assassins start to turn against each other" she asked quietly.

Naruto thought about it for a moment, "Backstabbing, and underhanded procedures?" he asked.

"Yea, but not necessarily in the way you would think. There were a few deaths in the guild proper. Most deaths however came from miss informed missions, targets knowing who to look out for. It was like a cancer, slowly killing the guild from the inside. Riley, my master was killed because he agreed with me. Myself, they had managed to get me locked away, being held for trial by execution. There is no worse fate then to be imprisoned, denied the right to be free."

"When I broke out I was so angry, you should understand Naruto. Denied your right to exist, beaten to submission. Everyday wondering was this, the end, I had been through a lot, but everyone has a breaking point."

Naruto listened to the words, memories of a time long forgotten past through his mind, being ignored, being hated, always hurting, either from the physical or the emotional pains caused by the village of his birth. He never wanted to go back to that.

"When I finally broke out I came back to the guild to find that it had been destroyed. They were double-crossed by one of the people they had used to kill off some of the members. The inner sanctum may have been locked. But the streets ran red with the blood of the villagers and the guild members. None were spared."

He hadn't known what had happened to the place, he thought it was attacked, but to be destroyed by their own, over differences of their own practice, it seemed ludicrous to him. They followed a path, and when the path was being changed, they rebelled against it and tried to kill each other just to keep things the way they were.

Would he become like that, would he choose to fight over whether not he wanted to change or to stay the same. Could he do that, his mind was going faster than it had at any time before. If changing caused them to kill each other, would not changing have saved them? Why were they so against the idea of change?

"You will see worse things in this world, you may be a part of some of them, and you may have failed to stop some. I can't tell you how to come to terms with the things you've done. I can't force you to do anything. Eight years ago, you told me you wanted power to learn how to defend yourself. In the past eight years has your reason for wanting power changed?" She was curious, eight years is a long time.

Naruto was about to answer no, he stopped himself however as he thought about it. Had his reason changed, it would be easy to say no without thinking. Listening to how the guild destroyed its self because of not wanting to change had forced him to stop.

Change was natural, it was he who had changed, he had left the village of his birth and had probably travelled further than any of them had before. He had learnt how to fight, and had been learning his own things in his own time. Not just what Clara was teaching him, therefore, he was changing her style to suit himself.

So did his reason change, thinking over it he knew he could defend himself now, so why continuing learning. Why not stop and leave. Why continue training. One reason was that Kiva was still here so he would stay to be with his friend. However, if Kiva wanted to leave would he leave as well?

Maybe, maybe he would leave, but would he be happy with leaving, why stay if you aren't happy, why leave if it wasn't what made you happy. Why attain power if it won't lead you to some form of happiness. _'What makes me happy'_ was his current thought.

He liked training he liked learning new things. He didn't like killing but a part of him did enjoy the fight. He liked travelling and seeing new places. He liked the ability to choose what he wanted to do. He liked the freedom that being with Clara offered him. He had to listen to what she said, but that was a part of the training, that was a given.

He was going around in circles, his reason for wanting power, to protect himself, but he can defend himself, so why stay. He stays because his friend is here, but if she left would he, maybe however, would leaving make him happy. No staying and learning more would make him happy. Why?

Because staying would let him learn, learning new things was interesting and fun, leaving though would let him travel, staying also would let him travel, and he could travel when his training was complete. He wanted the ability to choose, Clara offered that, leaving offered that. But would Clara let him leave.

"If I wanted to leave would you let me?" he asked rather meekly his mind was a muddle of information.

"Is that what you want?" she asked simply.

"No!" came his response, "But... but if I wanted to... would you let me?" he asked again quietly.

"I have told you before, it won't stop until it is over. I warned you when we started, I wanted you to understand that." She told him. She could see the look in his eyes change, they become more downcast, she could nearly see the one thought that was in his head _'trapped'_.

"However, I never told you how the training ends, you had a year to back out, and after that you were here till I deemed the training was over." She looked him in the eye as she told him the next part, "Just say it and the training can be over and you can leave." She wouldn't hold him there against his will, but she didn't want others to know of the guild.

"All I ask is that you tell no one of me and about this place, promise me that and you can leave your training will be considered over. Not complete, but over." She always stuck by her word, if she gave her word she would follow through with it. But that didn't mean that she wouldn't leave herself some form of out if she needed it. Though truth be told this would be one of the few times that she would use it.

Clara offered him the choice; he was free to make his decision. That thought made him stop, 'Free to choose' is that what he wanted, 'to choose what he wanted'.

"Freedom… I want… I want to be free" he didn't know where the words came from, but they felt right. _'Free'_ that word resounded in his head, he had never really thought of it before, had he been free before this, before meeting Clara he would say yes he was free in a way. But was he not also trapped in that village. In Talron he had freedom but he was also in a way trapped, waiting until he could leave.

Clara looked up from her position pondering the words that Naruto had said, "Freedom… it's defiantly a nice reason to want power. What would you do with this freedom?" She asked genuinely intrigued by what his answer would be.

Naruto set in the centre circle thinking over what to say, _'what would I do with freedom?'_ Thinking about it, he would say nothing different than what he already had. But that wasn't an answer, _'What would I do if I was denied my freedom?'_ That question seemed far more important in his mind.

"It's not what I would do with it…" he started speaking slowly, as if testing each word upon his lips. "But what I would do if someone tries to take it from me… or from someone I care about." It may have sounded like an afterthought but Clara could see the conviction in his eyes grow as he continued to speak.

Clara watched as a small smile spread on Naruto's face as the words seemed to bring a comfort to him, _'Well at least he is no longer moping around about making a proof of kill.'_

"Okay then time to get back to business!" she said with enthusiasm as she stood up and slammed her hands onto the table. The sudden change caused Naruto to jump to his feet.

"What?" he said as he righted himself from the sudden startle.

"Now we are going to do something new. For the next six months were going to do much more focused training, after that we are going to split up for a year. Kiva and Joshua will be traveling together and you and myself will be traveling together."

Naruto looked at Clara trying to figure out her reason, before finally asking "why? Why separate us for a year?"

"Well you are nearing the end of your apprenticeship, the yearlong travel is learning from me in a manner more attuned in how you will function after you leave, it will be more specialised in fighting, finding work, and where you will go in your training afterwards, the same will for Kiva." She said simply, on the inside however _'I am not keeping two teenagers going through puberty together, I had to deal with one before and it was a nightmare in its self, let Joshua deal with handling a girl I paid my dues in that department.'_

Although it may have been better for her to take Kiva in some regards, Naruto was her apprentice and by that standard it was her job to teach him.

-(the Next day)-

Naruto had woken early that morning, he had a relatively good sleep all things considering, it seemed the talk he had had with Clara had helped to clear his mind. He went through his morning routine and made his way to the main chamber.

Upon entering the area his instincts screamed at him to move, jumping into a forward roll he barely caught the glimpse of Clara's leg attempting to kick him in the head.

"Very good, you're getting much better" he haired his teachers voice. "Now before we start today's lessons show me your left arm." She spoke firmly. He knew by her tone that she wasn't in the mood to play around. Rolling up his sleeve he showed her his arm.

Clara inspected the design that was nearly eight years old, it hadn't lost its golden shine, and the blue pool in the centre was still as fresh as the day it appeared. That part worried her more than anything. She had given Kiva the same marking to help her and while the vines and chain were there that centre pool was not.

The vine on Naruto's design looked worn, as if they were slowly wearing away, while the chain had lost three links and what looked to be the beginnings of a crack in the next one. She supposed she couldn't put it off any longer. "Follow me" she said as she walked back to her study.

Upon entering the study she went to her desk while Naruto took his usual seated position in the centre circle.

"Okay Naruto I've been meaning to explain this to you but I have had to wait till you were old enough to understand." She took a breath

"What can you tell me about the marks that I have given you?" she asked, she had let him study up on the marks as a way to understand them.

"The one on my right, the cloak and dagger are a connection to a Realm called…" "Don't say it!" Clara suddenly interrupted him.

"Have you ever spoken that name aloud?" she asked in a serious tone, she had not expected him to dig that up, true the information was there but still.

"Yes, but it's hard to pronounce and feels weird when I say it." He said to her.

"Well the reason for that is that you are saying it wrong, the language it is in has been long lost, it's called Shaedar, but you are not to say it unless you can be certain you are able to pronounce it" She said with a stern face.

"But it looks nothing like that! How was I able to even guess that's how it was pronounced dattebayo!" he shouted in frustration, the stupid book had nothing that even hinted that it was pronounced differently from being spelt.

Clara chuckled at her apprentice's outburst.

"Why do you not want me to say the name?" Naruto asked.

"I'll get to that soon, what do you know of the other one?" She replied.

"Well it connects to another realm, but I don't know which or what it actually does other than allow for me to draw from that realm." He said to her.

"Okay I will explain the left one first." She took a moment to sort out her thoughts she knew this would be slightly confusing it was why she had waited.

"The design on your left connects to the faey realm, it is a predominately magical realm. The chain in the design works as a limiter. It limits your connection to the realm and how it will affect you." She spoke slowly trying to use the right words that she didn't leave him with the wrong information.

"Do you remember how I said some people are born with a natural connection to a realm, and those who are more in tune with one realm?" She asked, watching as he slowly nodded his head.

"Well these connections are not all equal they are based on how the realm connects to the person. Some use small connections that grow over time. The faey realm is always a full connection due to that people have killed themselves using the power of the realm, drawing more than they are able to." She stopped after a second thinking about what she said.

"No that's not exactly right" she said sighing, "You" she pointed at Naruto, "Are the connection to that realm, it is not a lot but it's like… a window." She stopped thinking about it. Nodding her head at her own thoughts she continued.

"Yes, a window. The connection to the faey realm is like a window, which is letting something in. Those with a natural connection has that window always opened fully, so they are constantly bombarded with what is coming through." She paused again looking at him to make sure that he was listening, it wouldn't be the first time he drifted off while listening to her.

"The limiter means that it opens slowly until you are capable of withstanding the full force of the power of that realm." She finished she could see that the boy had a question, if his near bouncing in place was any indication. "What?"

"Does that make it the strongest Realm, if it is always open?" he asked giddy at the idea that he could possibly use the strongest realm.

"No, it is not the strongest, but one of the more dangerous. Luckily or unluckily it is the only one I know how to use when it comes to magic. There is no strongest realm, there are stupidly powerful beings and divines in those realms, but that doesn't make the power you use the strongest, that is up to you." She said.

Which was true the faey realm was strong because of how it offered its power and the beings within it, but it was dangerous for those two reasons. Especially considering that beings from the faey were curios by nature and had no problem fucking you over if they thought it was interesting.

But an exceptionally talented and powerful user of the faey realm fighting against an equal in power and talent of another realm was on even playing field. No one realm made the user more powerful. It was the user that mattered in the end.

"The vines however" she started talking again, "is the most important part, it is something you will come to see in the years to come. As I said that it is like a window, well that is true in another regard, you are fully viewable to the faey, the beings of great power within that realm. The vines are a protection, they don't allow the faey to see you at first. Then they limit their ability to talk to you." She took a deep breath this was where it got difficult and it wasn't even the worst part yet.

"Talk?" Naruto asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"Like any window it can be seen through, and as it opens something from the other side can come through if it is big enough. Now before you freak out…" she started

"What do you mean come through?" Naruto shouted

"Listen brat, they can come through but they won't physically affect you, not when you're doing something. They are curious by nature and while they have no problem fucking you over they won't take direct action. It's not in there way, at least they never have taken direct action."

"As you become stronger in it and the chain weaken and break allowing more power for you to have access and draw from so do to the vines wither away and the faey can see you. But by the time that the vines are fully gone you will have a proper awareness of the faey which gives you an advantage over those naturally a tune to the realm. Though I think they find us more interesting than the ones with a natural gift" She finished lowly.

"Do they talk often?" he sked curiously.

"I haven't heard them talk in a while and by a while I mean a few years. Usually they do it when you're alone there far more prone to watching and seeing what will happen." She answered, he would make do with it he had to. The price of power is never cheap.

After a few minutes of sitting in silence she had decided to answer the next question swiftly she needed to tell Kiva the same information and it would be better to do it while it was still fresh in her head. Let it never be said that Clara always made the smartest choices when it came to telling people important facts.

"I will talk about the right one later, I should have brought Kiva to this as well but what's done is done." She said.

"One quick note the reason you never say Shaedar, is because it is known as the sentient realm, a realm with a self-awareness. It is the realm of shadows and it exists everywhere unlike faey which you are the connection, Sheadar is connected to all parts of our realm. You don't say its name because it doesn't like when it is mispronounced," She spoke slowly trying to emphasize her point.

"Why?" he asked not understanding.

"I have no idea, there are things I don't know Naruto, why Shaedar is sentient, why it doesn't like its name being mispronounced, how the first member of the guild made a connection to Sheadar, if it was natural or a forced link like the one used by the guild." She said with a shrug.

"I will teach you to say it right, there is a bonus for people like us who can properly say its name. But for now I will have to tell Kiva the things about Faey. Fuck, should have told both of you at once." She said as she got up to leave.

"What about the blue pool in the middle?" Naruto asked.

Clara turned to look at him before noticing what he was talking about, the centre of the golden design for the faey realm had a blue circle in the middle of it, something that had confused her greatly when it appeared.

Before she could answer she heard it, a low whisper through the room, a soft feminine voice, similar to the last ones that she had heard.

"The lady made a choice" it said, she waited for a follow up that never came, she turned to look at her apprentice to see his eyes wide. He had heard it to.

"That is a faey, and if you can't tell there not very forthcoming with answers when they do talk" though she had to admit she was happy that it had chosen to talk at this moment, at least she had already explained it to him, and was here for the first time it happened.

With that she left the room, she had to tell another person of what was going to be happening to her.

-(2 Years Later)-

Clara set at her desk looking at the young man who she had trained for nearly eleven years, he had come a long way from the street urchin that she had found nearly beaten to death. He now stood at five foot three, rather small in comparison to other humans in the lands, his spikey blonde hair was cut short, and she was always amazed at how it stayed naturally spikey.

He wore a brown leather duster she had gotten him as a gift over a burnt orange t-shirt, both of which sported the same spiral design that all his t-shirts had, with black combats and black boots. He had his green goggles safely secured around his forehead holding back his bangs.

His face still had the slight chubby cheeks, though the goggles hid it, he had small scar on the right side of his forehead where he got hit by a club.

He was standing in a rather relaxed manner as he waited for her to speak. She couldn't believe just how fast the time went by. She would be lying if she didn't say that she had enjoyed teaching the kid.

"You know what today means don't you?" she asked simply.

"Aye, I think so." Truth be told this was one thing he wasn't looking forward to, Clara had been a constant in his life, and the idea of leaving and maybe not seeing her again didn't sit right with him. However, at the same time he wanted to go out on his own. He wanted to experience the world and see where his travels brought him.

"You know you were not the easiest child to deal with, I always had doubts about teaching you, little nagging thoughts that maybe this wasn't the right way for you. But you know what?" she asked with a smile on her face "I am proud of you, you stuck through till the end, you held through your convictions and finished the training."

She reached into her duster pocket and withdrew a metal object, "there really is no present or gift for finishing here. However other guilds and groups in the lands have a gift to mark your joining." She said before tossing the metal object towards him.

"I received that as a welcoming present by an old friend when I joined 'the champions of the North.' I want you to have it." It was a gift that she truly did not want to part with, on the other hand though she didn't have anything that she would count as a suitable gift.

Naruto looked at the object in his hand, it was a metal hip flask that he had seen Clara use often. "Are you sure about this?" he remembered a time when someone lifted it off the table without her permission. She had broken his arm in four different places.

"Yea, it is the most important thing that I own that I am willing to part with. The marks on your arms show you as my apprentice, the flask is a gift for you surviving." She said simply. "It's a special flask, it holds much more then what it should. And secondly it automatically refills itself every day at midnight."

"Than… Thank you Clara… for everything." Naruto stuttered out, he truly could never repay the woman for everything that she had done for him.

"You know this isn't the end brat, whether you like it or not you are still my apprentice until you are deemed a master. But hold your head up brat, it's a brave new day for you. You have finished my training and you are free to do whatever you want." She stood up and walked towards Naruto.

"I have a few other gifts for you, but they are related to your own personal training. First I need you to take off your jacket and t shirt." She told him.

Naruto being used to odd request by this point easily took off the clothes, he watched as Clara once again reached into her duster and took out a piece of paper. She pressed it to his chest "Okay I need you to channel you're your magic directly into this."

Without having to be asked twice he channelled into the piece of paper, he felt a sudden twitch in his body. He had been standing upright and then he suddenly felt a great weight bring him to his knees.

Laughter broke him from his thoughts, "That was definitely worth the wait." He heard Clara speaking. "Come on get up, I have one last thing to tell and give you before you go."

Standing was easier said than done, his entire body suddenly felt heavier, after he righted himself she started speaking, "Okay first I have just placed a gravity rune on you that will weigh you down. It will increase as you grow accustomed to it."

She said holding up one finger, "Secondly gravity runes were not originally meant for this purpose, this is a special run I had commissioned for you. It can't be deactivated, only removed. You will have to learn how to take it off yourself in order to reapply it."

She held up a third finger, "Thirdly, the reason I waited until now to place it on you was because there is a chance it could of stunted your growth if I had of placed it on you last year. There is still a chance but hey, you're just going to have to learn fast aren't you"

She held up a fourth finger. "And finally it will give you something to strive towards. You have been learning runes so this will be one of your goals. And it's not bad for training."

Naruto was in shock, at what he heard, he didn't know how to respond, he watched as she put her hand into her pocket again and this time pulled out a bundle that would seem too large for the coat it was held in.

"These are some books I procured for you on Runes and Rune craft, there more advance then the ones I have." She handed him the bundle.

Naruto was nearly floored by what she had done, without even thinking he lunged forward and wrapped his arms around the woman. "Thank you Clara!" he shouted with enthusiasm there was a slight burning at his as small tears of happiness trickled down.

"There, there, brat don't get all emotional it's my job to make sure you don't get yourself killed. I think it is time for us to part ways though. Make sure to grab whatever gear you want, and don't forget or lose the obsidian blade or I swear by the divines, the faey and any other being that is listening that I will string you up by your neck with your own intestines!"

She shouted the last part into his ear to make sure to drive the point home, she couldn't believe that he had nearly lost the blade when they were traveling together. It wasn't like others knew what it was or what it was used for, but better safe than sorry.

"I know, I Know I won't forget it." He said as he rubbed his sore ear.

Clara watched as he left the room to finish getting his stuff.

-()-

As Naruto travelled up the ladder he noticed how much harder the once simple task had been, he didn't know whether to curse Clara or not, though it was definitely true what she had said, it would make him learn runes much faster just for the ability to deactivate the rune when needed, instead of just removing it.

He could hear the sound of soft music playing as he ascended the ladder, which could only mean one thing to him.

As he pulled himself out of the manhole he looked around for his partner in crime for nearly eleven years. Walking through the back entrance of the tavern he saw her sitting by the bar. The Tavern looked a lot better now than it had, and Clara planned to actually rebuild the village. When he asked her why she simply shrugged her shoulders and said 'because.'

Kiva had changed over the last few years, she grew to about five foot one, and her curly ginger hair had grown down to her shoulders. She wore a dark green corset sort of top, with tight black trousers. The choice of trousers always made him wonder if she could actually move in them.

She had a strap on her back that she used to hold her violin, she had a pale grey traveling cloak sitting beside her. "So you ready to leave" he heard her say.

"Yea, got my gear what about you." Naruto gave his reply.

Kiva took a look at him to make sure that he didn't forget something, though unless she checked all his pockets, which she was not in the mood to even start doing she wouldn't know. Though she did notice that he was now sporting a double armed holster over his t shirt that seemed to have different knifes attached to it on the front and she presumed around the back. He also had a sword at his hip.

"I'm ready, so where to?" she asked. Kiva was looking forward to leaving she had spent a long time with Naruto in the guild and the idea of traveling together was appealing to her. She couldn't imagine going off into the world by herself. Naruto had been her best friend and if she was going out into the world she wanted her best friend with her.

Naruto walked out of the tavern and into the middle of the street, drawing his sword he threw it up into the air. When it hit the ground he pulled out a compass and looked at it. "West" he said before picking up the sword and sheathing it ready to set off.

After walking for five minutes Naruto felt something moving at speed past his face, he heard a soft thunk on the ground. Kiva whipped around preparing for conflict, she didn't know how someone could have gotten so close without either of them noticing.

Naruto reached down to the ground and picked up a large crossbow bolt, chuckling he put it in his pocket before continuing walking. After a moment Kiva followed.

-()-

"Was that really a good idea" a male voice came from beside her.

Clara was lying prone on the roof of the tavern with a repeating crossbow in her hands. Looking through a small sight that she had specially made for the crossbow.

"Yes Joshua. Yes it was" came her reply.

"So what now?" Joshua asked

"It's a brave new day Joshua, and there are places to go and adventures to be had. I'll see them again, but until then I think I will travel." Clara spoke as she got up fixing the crossbow to her back.

-()-

A.N

Hope you enjoyed reading and any feedback would be much appreciated.


	9. Chapter 9

-(Konoha 12 years ago)-

The Sandaime Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, sat in his office looking over the village, he was not having a good day, he had just received a report that three civilians had gone missing four days ago and that one chunin had also gone missing. Missing Civilians had started to become a common occurrence and it had been worrying him greatly, now with the missing chunin he had to wonder if the chunin had been behind it.

After he had sent out a team of chunin to look for the missing one he decided to visit the young Uzumaki in the orphanage. It had been four months since he had the free time to actually visit the child, and he had been looking forward to it.

When he had gotten there however he had soon found out that Naruto had went missing from the orphanage four months ago. When he got angry at the Matriarch for not being informed of the child's disappearance she had replied with, "Children run away all the time, what makes that thing any different."

He nearly suffocated the woman with the killing intent that he had released at that moment, but he knew that he couldn't do anything short of executing her because of her negligence. The streets of Konoha were full of orphans, some running away from the orphanage, some abandoned by family, and some caused by the Kyuubi attack four years ago.

He had two ANBU members searching the village for any sign of the boy, but so far none had come up. He wondered had he run away.

An ANBU agent with gravity defining silver hair appeared in front of the ageing Kaga, "Report" the old man said.

"There has been no sign of the boy, Hokage-Sama" the ANBU agent said keeping his voice neutral. Before Hiruzen could respond there came a knock at his door. With a wave of his hand he beckoned the ANBU agent to hide. "Enter" he said.

The door opened and in walked a young black haired boy with tear marks on his face, and a slightly older purple haired girl. "Report" the Hokage told the two chunin.

The purple haired kunochi spoke, "We located the body of the missing chunin and the three missing civilians two hours outside of the village."

"What happened to them?" the Hokage asked.

This time it was the black haired boy answered, "There were a total of three men and one woman. The woman had a hole in her head which we presume came from a knife of some sort, though its dimensions were smaller and thinner then a standard kunai entry wound. One of the male civilians had a knife wound in his neck, similar to the wound in the woman's head. The second male civilian had a crushed throat. The chunin however was different, he was missing an arm, and we recovered this from his head."

He placed the object on the desk, Hiruzen lifted up the object and inspected it. It was a crossbow bolt. However it was half the length of any crossbow bolt he had seen.

Crossbows were not a common weapon, militias used them because they required less training then other weapons. No village would use such a weapon because of how inefficient it is compared to using kunai and shuriken.

However here was a crossbow bolt, which had been removed from the head of one of his ninja's. There were different questions running through the old man's head at this point, _'what were three civilians and a ninja doing out in the woods? Who killed them? And why use a crossbow?'_

"Is there anything else?" he asked the pair.

"It was hard to tell but we believe there may have been a sixth person there." The boy answered the Hokage. "There was another patch of blood near where the fighting went on, though it could have been from the ninja losing his arm, the trail would lead to believe that there was someone dragged." He continued.

"We searched the area around the attack, either the tracks have been erased since the time of the event, or the person who did it was very good at covering there tracks. Considering that the report of them being missing was from four days ago, and the bodies looked to have been there a while it is very possible they were lost due to time." The girl reported.

Hiruzen took out his pipe stuffed it with tobacco and lit it, taking a deep inhale he exhaled slowly letting his mind ponder the information.

'_If there was an extra person there, who could it have been? One person killing three civilians was bad, but they had managed to kill a chunin, not only cutting off his arm which indicates that they used a blade, but they either use a crossbow, or used a crossbow to try and frame someone else.'_ The old Hokage did not like the idea of where this could be going.

"Are you certain there were no bandits or multiple people in the exchange that happened?" He asked the pair.

Both were silent thinking over the place that they found the bodies. "No Hokage, I don't believe there were any more, the forest that they had been found would have had more damage if multiple people had been there. I believe it was one skilled person, compared to multiple unskilled bandits." The boy said.

"Alright" Hiruzen took another drag from his pipe, "you may leave Itachi and Yugao, good work" Both Chunin left the room, with a wave of his hand the ANBU appeared in front of him again. "As you were saying?"

"We have been unable to locate the boy within the village. Nor have we found any sign of him in the surrounding area. I will look at the area where the bodies were found to see if there is any indication that he was there." The ANBU said, waiting for the Hokage to let him leave.

"Very well" with another wave of his hand the ANBU left the room.

Hiruzen was not happy with this information, if Naruto was there then he was most likely kidnapped by someone. The Question thought was why and where would he have been taken. If it was a ninja then he could be in another village or have had the kyuubi extracted from him killing him in the process. If bandits got him… he could not bear the thoughts that came to mind if bandits had gotten their hands on the child, death may be a better outcome then what may happen to him.

He looked at the crossbow bolt again wondering if maybe it was meant to be a red hearing.

-()-

Danzo set in his base looking over the report that he had recently received about the latest information on their lost jinchūriki. The boy had went missing days ago, he had only been keeping small tabs on the child, and had learnt that he had left the orphanage and had been in the streets. He had considered taking the boy in, but he knew it was only a matter of time until Hiruzen realised that the boy was out of the orphanage and then go looking for him. And it would not take him long to come to Danzo looking answers.

He was not proud that he didn't realise that the boy had actually gotten out of the village, though now proved the perfect time to find him. If Hiruzen believes the boy to be dead then when he finds him he could create a very powerful weapon for the village.

Though the report had one unsettling part to it, the boy may have been taken by someone else. This begged the same three questions, who, why and where?

The loss of a jinchūriki was very bad for the village, if any of the other nations realised that they didn't have one, or that there was one out in the open it would nearly be hunting season in order to try and get it.

Danzo would have to wait, wait and see if anyone picked up hide or hair of the jinchūriki, and if the option presented itself he would take the child and train him to be a proper shinobi.

-()-

Kakashi was looking around the area where the fight had taken place, the Chunin had left the bodies where they were. He was thankful for that it would help try and paint a better image of what happened. The only problem was that the bodies were older than four days.

Three if the bodies were near each other those had been the three males, the female had been a few feet away. There was a horrible stench of decaying flesh in the air.

Looking over the scene he tried to piece together what had happened. The fact that there were three close together would imply that they either knew each other or they had some common goal. Why the woman was further away he didn't know, maybe she was standing behind them.

'_Why were four people out here, what would of brought them out?'_ he thought to himself.

Remembering about the blood trail that indicated there may have been a sixth person, kakashi went to find it.

It took five minutes to find the very faint and dry blood marks on the ground, he was impressed that two chunin had managed to come across it, he was certain that he would of missed it if he wasn't aware that it was there.

The blood smear didn't leave a trail but it had been far enough away from the others that solidified the notion that were definitely six people in the clearing that night. Now all he had to do was find where it came from.

Coming the area for nearly half an hour he came upon a hollowed out tree with dried blood near it. The tree was too small for a man to hide in, but a child could fit just fine. Looking inside the tree he found a third patch of blood, old an unusable but it was a lot cleared than any that there had been on the outside.

This proved that there had been a sixth person in the clearing that night, and considering that there has been no sign of Naruto Uzumaki then there is a high possibility that he was here.

Now the main question that Kakashi had was what happened to him. Kakashi took his findings to make his report, if they were going to try and catch up with whoever took the boy then they would need a skilled tracker.

-()-

Hiruzen was most definitely not happy once he heard Kakashi's report, drawing the conclusion that Naruto was driven out of the village. Then some of them had followed, and a third party got involved.

He hoped the boy was all right but the third party worried him, whatever they wanted with Naruto couldn't have been good.

He had sent his best tracking squad out in the hopes to reclaim the boy, as well as send a combat specialist. If one of the villages had taken him, he would have to get him back. He couldn't face Minato or Kushina knowing that he failed to protect their son.

However he did not know what to do about Jiraya the man was the boy's Godfather and would most likely try and find him if he found out he was gone. But telling him would direct his services away from his main job as Konoha's spymaster, and by god the man didn't need any more distractions than he already had. Thinking it over he thought that it would be best to tell the man, if he found the boy without being told he was missing it would cause trouble. He already had one student not coming back to the village and another that seemed to be slipping further and further away. The last thing he needed was his third student to start hating him.

-(Time skip eight years later)-

A tall man was walking through the large village near Hi no kuni's border, he walked with a slight sway in his step. He didn't seem to be paying any attention to the world around him. It had been a long eight years for the man. He had been searching the continent high and low in order to find one person and had still come up short.

If he were to be honest with himself that there were more pressing concerns then the search of one person. With his teammates betrayal he should be trying to find some information out on him. He knew that he should be trying to do something to help benefit Konoha, and while it is true that what he was doing could be seen as a benefit to Konoha it was not for the village that he continued his search.

He had a contact in the town that he was going to check up on, it had been eight years without any word. He had managed to find out that a pair with one of them matching a description of the one he was looking for was heading towards Kaminari no Kuni, but that had been two months after the disappearance and that lead dried up pretty fast.

The part that hurt him most however was when he had went to Konoha to try and find out information in the first week of finding out, he had asked the Hokage about a picture of the boy to help with the search. He was told he didn't have any. He got a good description of the boy, but the Hokage didn't have a picture.

That had stung him, Jiraya knew that he had made many mistakes in his life, but this one was probably the worst. His own Godson was taken from the village of his birth, and all he had was a description of what he looked like eight years ago.

He had never seen the boy before, he had left him in what he had considered capable hands.

He went to his contacts meeting point, it was a small tavern in the lower east side of the village it was a rather simple place with a nice atmosphere. Jiraya walked into the tavern and took a seat at the bar.

It wasn't long for his contact to arrive, he didn't believe the information would be useful, he hadn't heard anything in eight years. He had gotten his hopes up to many times before for it to turn into to nothing.

He left the tavern an hour later, his informant had not been able to tell him a lot, at another point in time he would have been worried. There was already suspicions running rampant in Konoha that Kumo abducted the jinchūriki. This stemmed from the information he found two months after Naruto's disappearance. There was no proof, but that didn't stop people from believing it.

The informant had told him about some of what he had heard in Kumo, one of which was the attempted abduction of the Hyuuga heir, and the demand for Hiashi's head for killing a Kumo shinobi.

Apparently the old Hokage had sent Kumo the heads of the members of the delegate that had been there. He hadn't taken Naruto's disappearance well, and the fact that Kumo had tried to abduct a child was the last straw.

Tensions seemed to be running high in the Elemental Nations, Kumo and Konoha were on bad terms, and only both sides wanted to keep the piece if only for a little while longer was why the world hadn't went to a fourth war.

For all the problems that the world seemed to be in Jiraya couldn't find it in himself to care, he was looking for the last legacy of his student, a child that was his own Godson. He would find the boy, and he would take him home. He hadn't been there for the boy growing up but he would do right by his student and find his Godson.

Jiraya continued through the village, walking aimlessly trying to figure out where he should go next. Stopping outside of a bar he decided to get a drink. He hadn't actually taken part in any of his usual activities over the last eight years. Instead focusing everything that he had on finding the boy.

Stepping into the bar he was greeted by a sight that he hadn't been expecting. At the other end of the room was a blonde haired woman drinking, she had pale skin, with a jewel in her forehead. He could spot her a mile away.

He stood still for a second wondering what to do, eight years ago he wouldn't of been so conflicted he would of barged on up and would of taken a seat. Now though he didn't know if it would be best just to leave her alone. Pondering in his head he decided that he may as well talk to her, it had been years since they had talked, and with the defection of Orchimuru they were the only two that were still technically loyal to Konoha.

"How are you Tsunade-hime" he said as he took a seat, he watched as she lifted her head up and looked at him, he saw a girl sitting beside her, it was most likely the apprentice that she had when she left the village, he remembered her as a little girl it would seem that she had done some growing over the years.

"What do you want?" she asked going back to her drink.

"What an old friend can't stop by and talk?" he asked faking being hurt.

"You pop up out of the blue like this, and then ask me how I am. I'm not buying it. I know something is going down and I want no part of it. I'm not going back." Tsunade spoke while taking a longer drink.

"I'm not here to ask you to comeback, I didn't even know you were in the area, I just walked in and here you are. And I don't know if anything is happening but tensions are high all over. You heard about Orchimuru?" He asked trying to strike up conversation he really didn't know what to talk about. He couldn't help but think how much easier this used to be.

She let out a sarcastic laugh, "Every one heard about Orchimuru. Konoha's S Rank criminal."

He should have seen that coming it was true, everyone knew about Orchimuru, the atrocities he has committed is only matched by the deed he did in the war. It was strange to think just how far his teammate had fallen.

"So what brings you all the way out here?" If he wasn't here to try and bring her back then she could at least be civil, until the pervert tried something.

Jiraya wondered what he should say, he decided to go with the truth, no point lying to her about it. And if there was any luck she might have seen something with all her wondering. "I'm looking for a kid, he would be about twelve now."

"And why would you be out here looking for a brat?" she asked rather confused. She didn't understand what type of child would bring him all the way out here.

"It's not just any brat" he said defensively.

"Oh and does the brat have a name?" She asked.

"Naruto… Naruto Uzumaki" he said.

That caught Tsunade off guard, she hadn't heard the name in eight years. She could still remember the little boy that she had healed. Sometimes she would wonder what ever happened to him, if he was still alive. Her surprise must have shown on her face because Jiraya had a serious expression on his face.

"What do you know?" he asked, he was not expecting Tsunade to know anything, the widening of the eyes could have just been from the last name, but he couldn't be certain.

If Jiraya hadn't of been so focused on Tsunade he would of seen Shizune's eyes widen at the name.

"Nothing much she replied, though I am curious why you would be looking for an Uzumaki. Didn't the last one you know die what was it twelve years ago?" She asked, she hadn't put much thought on the boy, but she saw this as a chance to maybe get a little more information. And maybe figure out the reason why he was in the state he had been.

It had always perplexed her that if the boy was Kushina's son, then why was he beaten to within an inch of his life.

"It's her son, he was kidnapped eight years ago." He knew that there was very little proof that he was kidnapped, and that he had been attacked beforehand but he couldn't think of another reason why he didn't go back to his home.

Tsunade had to make a physical effort to restrain herself, _'Like fuck he was kidnapped, the boy had been beaten to within an inch of his life.'_ Shizune wasn't doing much better at the words.

Jiraya for his part saw that both women were tense at the words, he misinterpreted this as Tsunade being angry that someone would kidnap a child.

"And why would they want to kidnap a child?" she asked.

Jiraya just rubbed his face, "I don't know, maybe because someone found out who his parents are, maybe because they found out he was a jinchūriki, I am not too sure." Jiraya was tired, he felt himself getting much older in the last eight years. The search for his Godson had not been easy on him.

With those words it all began to fall into place for Tsunade, she was nearly certain she knew what had happened to him, he was the jinchūriki of the Kyuubi, that's why he was beaten into an inch of his life. She heard Shizune ask a question "jinchūriki?"

"It means power of a human Sacrifice, the boy had a bijuu sealed into him. The Kyuubi if I had to guess. Am I right?" She asked Jiraya, the fact that the boy was a jinchūriki wasn't a problem to her. Her own grandmother had been one. Maybe if she hadn't of met the kid the information wouldn't of bothered her. Maybe if she never healed the boy she wouldn't of cared that much.

But the thing was that they weren't options at this point, she did meet the boy, and she had healed the injuries that he had received from his own village. And for what, because he was used as a way to protect the village. The idea made her even feel even less for the village then what she already did.

"But why hurt a child for something that he had no control over?" Shizune asked.

Tsunade had to sigh at her apprentice's choice of words, at no point had it been said he was harmed, you could insinuate that he may have been but Jiraya was Konoha's spy master and a slip like that would defiantly be caught.

And true to her thoughts Jiraya turned to look at her with a stern expression "What is she talking about Tsunade?"

Tsunade sighed and rubbed her forehead "And why are you asking me?"

She wasn't expecting for Jiraya's hand to slam down on the table cracking the wood. "What is she talking about?" he spoke slowly punctuating every word.

Tsunade sighed as she thought of her next words, "You won't find him." Simple and to the point.

"What do you mean, and how would you know?" Jiraya did not like where this conversation was going. The idea that his own teammate not only had information about his Godson but also didn't think to share it with him.

"In answer to your first question he isn't in this continent any longer." She waited to let that information sink in, it was still hard for her to think about the fact there was a whole other land across the waters.

"What do you mean, where is he, how do you know that he isn't here!" he shouted his questions; her last statement had taken him by surprise.

"I mean he's gone, taken across the sea to another continent. Moreover, I know because I met him." She leaned back in her seat taking a drink from her glass as she gave her last statement watching Jiraya's expression.

Jiraya didn't know what to say, he was trying to comprehend what he had just been told, he was shocked yes that Naruto was gone, he was surprised at the idea that he was across the sea in another continent. Most of all though he was furious that his teammate knew this and had never told him. Eight years he had been searching, eight years wasted when he should have been in another land searching.

"What do... you mean... you met him" he was trying his hardest to keep his calm, nothing would be gained if he got angry.

"Eight years ago a woman brought a small child to me to heal," she told him simply.

"And what you just healed him and sent him on his way? How do you even know it was him?" He asked dangerously he was not in the mood to play now; this was the first lead he had in eight years.

Tsunade looked at her drink remembering the shape that the boy had been in when she healed him. "She told me his name; you should have seen the shape that he was in when she brought him to me. Two broken arms, extensive internal injuries that should of killed him within six hours. Head trauma, slight swelling in the brain. Broken and cracked ribs." She listed off the injuries, they stuck with her, the sheer damage that the boy had received and the fact he was still alive was a testament to his will.

"What did she do to him?" Jiraya shouted, the idea that some woman had hurt his Godson had made him tremendously angry.

"She did nothing; she carried the boy for days until she was able to get him healed. I'll let you guess who attacked the child, giving everything you have said it shouldn't be hard to figure out." She let him figure out what happened to the child. Just thinking of it made her even angrier at the village, and coupled with the new information she received she couldn't understand why Jiraya was still loyal to the place.

Jiraya thought about what she had said, _'Who would have done that to a child'_ the most obvious answer was the one who abducted him in order to take him out of the village. Then his mind started to think back to the report that he was given about the situation, there were four other people there that night, three civilians and one shinobi.

He thought of the report that the Hokage had sent him, it was stated that he was abducted and that people had been killed in the process. It was written in a way that would allow for the conclusion that they had been killed defending the boy.

His mind started to process all the information, his Godson was a jinchūriki, and very few are ever liked by their village. The other part was that if the four there wasn't defending him then that meant that they were the ones...

"No" he said finally he refused to believe that the village had caused that type of damage to a child, the village was a good place worth protecting. Tsunade was blinded by her dislike of the village. There was no way that the village would do that to a child.

Tsunade stood up to leave the room she had enough of talking to the man, if he wasn't going to see what was in front of him then fine, she wasn't going to spell it out for him.

Her mind wondered back to the time in the casino when the woman had shouted at her in that strange language she thought she should give him one warning.

"If you do find him, be careful of the woman he is with. I don't know how strong she is, but when push comes to shove she can make you feel fear. Last time I felt that level of fear we were standing in front of Hanzo. I don't know if she is that strong but I don't want to find out." After saying her piece she left the bar with Shizune following behind her.

Jiraya was left alone in the bar thinking over everything that he heard, he didn't know what to believe and the idea that some woman could make Tsunade feel like that was a worrying thing indeed,

But he had one plan he would find his Godson and bring him back to his home, it is what his parents would have wanted.

-(three years later)-

The peace of the Elemental Nations had been strained, every Nation but Mizu no Kuni could feel it. Mizu wasn't spared from this fate either it just so happened that they were in a civil war for the last few years and hasn't had any real contact with the outside world.

Four of the big five nations could feel the strain, Konoha had a temperamental alliance at best with Suna, Kumo and Konoha were striving to avoid a war after the Hyuuga incident. Iwa was the only one that could be described as being normal still recuperating from their defeat in the last war.

One of the biggest shocks had been the Uchiha massacre four years ago, where one member had wiped out over ninety percent of the clan. This had put a strain on the village, Konoha had to try and appear to be strong least there enemies attack. This lead to them taking more missions, missions that were eating into their allies due to the fact that they were willing to do mission for cheaper.

The boarders of the nations had become more closed off, every nation was trying to keep some semblance of peace. Though skirmishes between them have become much more rampant as of late.

One man though looked out on the wide sea in the docks that he had been standing in, he had been trying for years to find a vessel that would be willing to sail to another continent. The only replies he had been getting recently were 'no' and 'there is nothing out there.' If it had not been for a dock in Kaminari no Kuni he would of had to believe that Tsunade had lied to him.

However, he had been told that there had only ever been one ship recorded that had come from what was believed to be another Continent. In addition, the ship hadn't seemed to be like anyship that had sailed in the Elemental nations.

Jiraya took a deep breath as he thought about his next course of action, he couldn't leave the land, and there was no ship that could take him to where he wanted to go. So he would have to wait, wait until a ship came that he could hitch a ride back on.

Little did he know that such a ship was pulling into dock in Kaminari no Kuni at that very moment.

-()-

A.N

This was more of a filler chapter just to give an idea of what the disappearance of Naruto has done to the Elemental Nations. I'm not overly happy with how it turned out, though the one part I did think was important was that the Hokage was overthinking the use of a crossbow.

Naruto's and Kiva at the end of the last chapter fifteen. He will be fifteen/sixteen during the events of Canon.

Thanks for reading I hoped you enjoyed the chapter.

A.N 2

I feel like an idiot I was going trough my documents and noticed that I had accidently delelted part of the Author Note in Chapter 2. In my orginal plan for the story I hadmade Naruto two years older then he was in Canon. I don't know how much that changes peeoples opinion of the story. Sorry about that my bad.


	10. Chapter 10

-(3 months prior)-

The sound of the waves hitting the side of the boat was the only thing that was keeping the two travellers awake, they had been going for nearly two days with very little rest. The warm sun was bearing down. Both had to wonder if this was going to be the end of their short adventure together.

Looking around the open waters our blonde haired protagonist spotted something in the distance. He searched the floor of the small row boat before he had managed to find the item that he was looking for. A rather small telescope that he extended out.

Looking through the object he saw in the distance one thing that made his heart leap into his throat. Grabbing onto the oars he started to row, his movements brought the attention of his long-time friend.

"What is it?" she asked, she had been feeling terrible for the past few days, not only had their ship sunk but they had ran out of food and were surviving by the water that they had managed to salvage.

"Well I have good news and bad news." He told her.

Kiva looked at him trying to way up which she wanted to hear first. Deciding that she was in need of some good news for a change decided on that choice. "What's the good?"

"Well the good news is that we will be reaching land within a day or two" Naruto said with a bright smile.

"And the bad?" she asked.

"I had no idea where we were going this entire time" he said with that same bright smile. She looked at him as if he had just grown a second head.

"What!" she shrieked, she couldn't believe it, they had been out at sea for months, after the incident in the Tanzanian waters.

"Well I didn't want to worry you, and the ship was heavily damaged by those sirens." He said in a matter of fact tone, he still remembered that fight.

-(Flashback)-

_The pair had just booked passage on a cargo ship, Naruto wasn't too worried where he would wind up it was a passing fancy to want to be back out at sea and he had managed to talk Kiva into the idea as well. The ship was heading north and that was in the general direction of where they wanted to go._

_The journey was uneventful for the most part the weather had stayed decent and there wasn't much to do. So they had been mostly staying in there cabins' Naruto working on the gravity rune that had been making his life a living hell and Kiva cleaning her instruments._

_The journey took a sudden unexpected turn. It had been on the eighth day, which in itself was strange because it was only meant to be a week long journey. _

_The storm had come out of nowhere, one moment it was smooth sailing and the next they were caught in the middle of a raging storm._

_Naruto Bolted out of his cabin, he wasn't sure if he would be able to help, but he had experience of having to work in storms and new how dangerous it was, and any extra hands would be needed._

_But as soon as the storm had come it had seemed to pass. He arrived on deck to see that there was no one out, no one was manning any part of the ship. He couldn't help the shiver that ran down his back, the ship was too quiet for a crew size of twenty and just after a sudden storm._

_He went to place his hand on his sword but realised in his rush he forgot to grab it. He forgot nearly all his gear in his room. Reaching down to his foot he pulled a knife out of his boots. One of Clara's old sayings was running through his mind _'Just because you're paranoid does not mean that someone isn't trying to kill you.'

_Naruto slowly backed up planning on getting back to his room in order to get the rest of his stuff. As he turned around he saw something moving at the corner of his eye. Against his better judgment he decided to see who it was. _

_As he made his way through the corridors he seemed to be one step behind whoever it was, he could have ran but that small voice in his head was advising him against it. As he made his way forward he could feel his head becoming lighter. His thoughts were swimming and he felt like laying down to sleep._

_He his ears were suddenly graced with the most beautiful melody that he had ever heard. Thoughts of following the figure suddenly left him as he just wanted to meet the source of the song. _

_His footsteps became light, as he travelled towards the song, as he turned the last corner he bore witness to the being, for that is the only way that he could describe her. Long brown hair that seemed to gleam in the low light. Smooth porcelain face, with soft eyes. A slender frame wrapped in a white tunic. _

_Naruto was speechless for a moment as he watched her slowly circle the ship's captain, singing her song. He could nearly see her words caress the man. He felt a slow build-up of anger that the man in front of him was having such a woman singing that heavenly song to him. As he went to step forward the song stopped._

_In an instance everything changed, the woman before him lost the sheer beauty that she had been near radiating a moment before. Her hair lost its gleam and became damp, near soaked. Her skin became splotch and wrinkled, as if she had spent too long in the water. Her white tunic turned a sickly green and clung to her body. A body that seemed to be nothing but skin and bone._

_Her arms became thinner and her fingers more crooked. He saw her lunge forward taken the man to the ground. She reared her head back, and he could see long jagged teeth in the woman's mouth before she moved forward biting down on the man's throat._

_She pulled back separating a chunk of flesh from his throat. Blood flowed from the wound as he heard the sound of the woman chewing. _

_Naruto wanted to scream at this sight, but the look of pure bliss on the man's face caused the shouts to die in his throat. The only thought being _'He doesn't know what's happening' _the woman turned around and their eyes met. Eyes that were now filled with a near euphoria as she slowly swallowed the flesh. _

_He could only stare as she used one of her bony fingers to clean the blood from around her lips before sucking on it in what could be described on any other woman as a seductive manner. As she slowly raised herself up she opened her mouth and his ears were once again graced by the same melody. _

_He tightened his grip on the knife in his hand trying to block out the song, he had to be careful or the woman in front of him was going to kill him. _

_It seemed that the woman knew that her song wouldn't work as she stopped singing in order to lunge forward, bringing her bony hands up in order to pierce his chest. _

_Bringing his knife into a reverse grip he parried the blow, using there close proximity Naruto flitted behind the woman hoping to catch her off-guard. As he came out of his shadow step he tried to side swipe her. _

_He managed to cut the woman's hand as she attempted to block him. He suddenly felt her hand grab his wrist and threw him across the corridor. As he righted himself he could only watch as she bent down and took another bite out of the man. She then held up her hand and Naruto could see the small wound slowly close. "You have got to be fucking kidding me dattebayo!" he shouted as he watched as she slowly got to her feet._

_Deciding that the better part of valour was getting away from the woman and getting his gear Naruto turned and ran._

_As he was running through the ship he could suddenly hear the song again, but unlike before it seemed like a choir was singing it. _'This is not good'_ were his thoughts as he ran. A small section of the wall suddenly broke as a man came sailing through. Naruto didn't need to check if he was dead, the angle of his neck was proof of that._

_Though his eyes did fall to rest on a long sword that was at the man's hip. Counting his blessing he ran forward, in one swift motion he jumped forward hand grasping around the hilt on the sword. Drawing it in one smooth motion he reoriented himself in time to block the lunge of a different woman. _

_He was beginning to get slightly worried, there was one in front of him, one behind that probably making her way forward and an unknown number on the ship. He suddenly heard another melody. Unlike the previous ones this was a tune he was far more familiar with. _

_It was a fast paced melody and it was slowly drowning out the sound of the singing. Taking the sword in a double handed grip Naruto decided that it was about time to go on the offensive. Shifting back a few steps he assumed the fool stance, with the long sword facing downward at an angle. With a sudden burst of speed his stance changed, he went from the fool, to long tail before bringing his sword up in a simple cut trying to bisect the woman_

_The woman managed to avoid most of the blow, but was still left with a light wound from her thigh to her shoulder. It wasn't enough to kill her, but she would be severely hindered. Trusting his gut he continuing forward he moved into the woman's shadow. He felt a small gleam of understanding pass through his mind, a signal that his technique was a success. For the next six seconds both were connected, she was unable to move, and him unable to attack her._

_It wasn't a moment too soon either, the woman that he had first met came round the corner. Upon seeing him, she ran and lunged once again hoping to pierce him with her hand. _

_She had been fast and had only managed to get out of the road of the attack, however the other woman wasn't so lucky. Unable to move she could feel as her fellow comrade hand went through her chest, and piercing her heart. She suddenly fell over, limp body hitting the ground. The woman let out an unmerciful screech at what had happened. "NEPNAR OYNFFG" Naruto shouted as he swung the long sword. Channelling as much energy as he could into the weapon. White force shot from the blade as it struck the woman knocking her over. _

_Naruto dropped the blade due to the heat of the weapon, he was breathing heavy. While possible to channel magic through the sword it was taxing, and it was only slightly more powerful than if he had of done it without the sword. _

_Drawing his blade again he ran forward jumping over the two bodies, he never noticed the one he hit biting onto the first._

_As he was running through the corridor trying to get to his cabin the sound of music suddenly picked up. He turned around the corner to see Kiva ducking back from a lunge as she continued playing her violin. The woman who attacked her looked remarkably similar to the first one. _

_However she seemed to be moving slower than the other two he had met so far, he picked up the pace and ran readying his knife to stab her in the back. When he was in striking range he couldn't help but notice that Kiva's last dodge had left her exposed with the woman readying to attack._

_As soon as he stepped close enough he once more flitted to position himself between Kiva and the woman. The attack cut deep into his right arm, refusing to scream he dropped the knife from his right hand. Kiva's music suddenly changed with a slight screech as a new melody started. _

_Naruto could feel his body lighten, as he spun and crouched catching the blade in his left hand before finishing the rotation and bringing it up into the woman's jaw. There was no howls, or screeches as she suddenly fell to the ground._

"_Fuck" Naruto hissed out as he looked at his bleeding arm. He tore off a bit of his t shirt in order to make a quick bandage for the wound. He turned to see Kiva run into her room before coming back with a brown box. _'We don't have time for this'_ Naruto thought._

_Opening the box, Kiva pulled out a vile of blue liquid, quickly handing it to him, she pulled out another vile of red liquid. "Drink that" she said as she took off the make shift bandage. Pouring the red liquid onto a new bandage she wrapped it around his arm. _

_After drinking the liquid he felt his fatigue slip away, the bandage around his arm seemed to stop the pain and allowed for full mobility. "You've got two hours before that wound reopens. And that will stop you feeling fatigue for about thirty minutes. If we don't finish up here soon we are both dead." She said as she popped another blue vile and drank it._

_Naruto looked dumbfounded at what she had done, quickly pushing any thoughts to the side he made his way to his room in order to grab his gear._

_Putting on his double shoulder holster and jacket before grabbing his broadsword he made it back to Kiva. _

"_Ideas" she asked. She was at a lost for what to do, by herself she didn't have a lot of combat potential. She had some, but against a faster and stronger enemy it was difficult. However if she was fighting with someone by her side more options would open up._

"_Get to the deck, the closed quarters hinders us, and our movements. Also considering that most of the crew is probably dead, there is no one guiding this ship." That wasn't a pleasant thought they could be sailing anywhere right now and the longer they were sailing the harder it would be to get back on track._

_Both teens made a run to get to the deck, the ship was eerily quiet at the moment. It was dark out and it made things harder to sea. Naruto had to wonder if he had made the right choice in going out._

_He could hear something akin to wood breaking, it didn't take long to realise that something was climbing the hull of the ship. Looking around he tried to spot where it was._

_Kiva wasn't faring much better she counted five considering the amount of songs she heard, and going by Naruto three where dealt with that meant that the ones climbing were the last two. _

"_Kiva I have something important to say…" Naruto started as he turned to look at his long-time friend, "when this is over…" he paused for dramatic effect, "I call dibs on being Captain."_

_Before Kiva had the chance to respond Naruto shot forward, entering into mealy combat with one of the women. _

_As the woman came over the ship Naruto hoped to be able to get a lucky shot in and kill her before she had a chance to fight back. Unfortunately she was just as fast as the others. Dodging the attack she swung to strike at Naruto. Turning on the ball of his foot he spun around in order to deliver a reverse slash. The momentum of his swing meeting the woman's arm meant only one thing. The arm was cut through and for a third time that night a loud screech echoed through the air. Using his other hand he drew a knife from his holster and stabbed the woman with it._

_Kiva was playing another dodging game with the new woman, unlike before the extra room made it easier for her to avoid the strikes and lunges without having to continuously play one of her melodies. _

_She brought her violin up she couldn't play her best melody because it was very unlikely that she would be able to hypnotise them, and she couldn't afford to waste the effort trying. Focusing hard she continued playing channelling as much as she could into the violin._

_The music picked up with the tempo constantly increasing as her fingers danced along the strings. She was going through many notes trying to not lose her focus, it happened fast. The constant build of magic within the violin became too much, she could feel it nearly swelling looking for a release, focusing for a moment she stopped for a split second as she dodged under an attack, before playing one final note. She could feel the force of the magic leave the violin and hitting the woman dead on. The blow knocked her back at the same time a crossbow bolt came flying across the ship and placed itself in the woman's head._

_The final one dropped. Kiva was righting herself as she looked over at Naruto, he was taken off his hand crossbow and placing it back on his holster._

_Naruto stood on the deck as he waited to hear if any more of them were coming. When Silence rained for a few minutes Naruto started to feel safe. He was about to go and check if anything had been severely damaged in the fighting._

_As he stepped forward he heard it. He had thought the three screeches before were bad, he could feel blood drip from both his nose and ears as the pressure seemed to be trying to force him down. Kiva had fallen under the pressure, he tried to make his way over to her to help her to her feet._

_Suddenly a part of the deck beneath his feet shattered, he managed to jump to the side as one of the women came out from the deck. "YOU!" she screeched, Naruto looked at her and noticed that it was the same one as he had first met._

_She made a lunge for him, barely managing to dodge to the side he tumbled forward, quickly bringing himself back to his feet he felt his body suddenly become heavier _'No, not now, why did it have to be now!'_ he screamed in his head, as he felt the gravity rune that Clara had placed on him suddenly change. His entire body felt heavy he was already having trouble matching her speed as it was and now he had just gained a huge disadvantage. He hadn't found a way to take the rune off yet and now he was cursing himself for not being able to do it._

_The woman made another attack for him, this time instead of the standard lunge she moved with an unnatural grace to be in front of him. Lashing out with a kick she sent him back a few feet._

_Running out of options he had to make a decision on his next course of action. He could hear Kiva slowly playing another melody, the woman moved again, "By my word you will know no peace!" He shouted._

_The woman stopped what she was about to do and turned to him. He could see the confusion in her eyes._

_Naruto could see that her shadow had become darker, before she tried to strike at him again, dropping his sword he threw himself to the side again. Bring up his right hand he extended it so the palm was out, "YVTUAVAT'F OYNFG!" He shouted as lightning shot from his hand. The woman avoided the blast by bending at an unnatural angle. _

"_By my oath you will know no rest!" he shouted again, he could see the shadow getting darker, the confusion in the woman's eyes gave way to slight bit of fear. She attacked again hoping to kill him. She was stopped by a sudden blast of force coming from kiva's direction. As she limped forward._

"_By my will you will know only fear!" he shouted as he dragged his heavy body over to his sword._

_It had taken a moment for the woman to right herself, Naruto could see the shadow nearly an unnatural darkness, the fear in the woman's eyes intensified. But it soon gave way to anger and hate, she prepared to go in for the kill._

"_By my hands you will know death!" he shouted as he moved forward, the shadow now a black that stood out in the night. As she went for her strike Naruto brought his sword forward, the woman's shadow moved separately from her body as it came alive and wrapped its dark hands around her throat strangling her. Naruto didn't stop as he ran his sword threw the woman._

_The deck was quiet, he could feel the woman fall forward onto him, he had to try and not freak out, and if she took a chunk out of his neck it was all over. As he tried to step back he felt the weight fall to the ground. Her body remained motionless, after a few moments he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding in._

"_Is it over?" he heard Kiva's voice from his side. _

"_Yea I think it is" he turned to look around the ship, "This place looks like crap."_

"_Stay there then I will be back in a moment." Kiva said as she went below deck, he couldn't help but think it was kind of stupid, they didn't know if it was really over. _

_He found it hard to keep his eyes open, his entire body felt heavy. He wasn't sure when Kiva had made it back with her little brown box. But the next thing he knew was that she was fixing the wound on his arm. He couldn't help but think how it was another scar to add to the collection._

"_Alright I guess it's time to sort…" he didn't get a chance to finish his sentence as all the previous exhaustion came rushing back to his body. He had been asleep before he hit the deck._

-(Flashback end)-

"So we had had been sailing for months! Months! Not knowing where we were going!" she was screaming at him, she couldn't believe that he would hide this type of information from her. They didn't even know where they are at the moment.

"Would it of changed anything?" Naruto asked he smiling as he looked up at the sky. "Would knowing that we were lost help you? Especially considering there was nothing that you could do about it?" He continued to row the boat he couldn't wait to get to land.

Kiva was about to retort to that until she thought about it, knowing they were lost at sea would have made the journey unbearable, she had trusted that Naruto knew what he was doing, and felt fine with that. Thinking back at the times she had asked him how the travels were going it was always, 'We're on course' or 'nothing new to really say.' He had been avoiding telling her to make sure she didn't worry.

It didn't make the anger go away, but it did curb it, she would have retribution for this. Even if it took years, she would have it.

It was after a day of rowing that the pair had finally pulled into land, they had come upon a beech, and decided to leave the row boat, packing up the equipment that they had salvaged before the boat sunk they started to head out to find out where they were.

-()-

The pair had been traveling down the road for a day, they had made considerably time in their opinion considering that they were tired, hungry and sore. It wasn't long before they came upon the first settlement.

It was night as they entered the village, and the pair set about hoping to find an inn to rest in, as they travelled through the streets Naruto's eye caught a shop's sign. It wasn't what the sign said that got his attention though it was how it was written. It took him a moment to realise it said something Store. But that wasn't the problem, he hadn't been expecting to see the language.

"God Fucking damn it, by the divines and all that they bless and by the fuck, with the fuck and fuck… fuckin hell! Dattebayo!" Words couldn't describe how he felt at that moment.

"Naruto, adjectives and nouns!" Kiva shouted at him.

"Do you remember me telling you I came from a land beyond the sea?" He asked her.

"Yea, what about… God fucking damn it, you got us stuck across the waters without a boat to get back, and we were meant to meet up with, Astros and Rathal in Talron, three months ago!" She was livid now.

"First of all I got us stuck nowhere, it was so damn sirens that got us out here, secondly…" he trailed off at that he didn't actually have a second point to make.

"You're the one who wanted to take a boat to get to Talron! I said we should take the train!" she shouted in exasperation.

"So where a little late for the meet up, there will be things to do here." He said as he walked through the village. However a small problem came to mind. "They use a different currency here… fuck!" he shouted at no one in particular.

"Even if they do, copper is copper, silver is silver and gold is gold. They should still be worth something" Kiva answered him, she wasn't worried about paying for anything, they would make do, they always had before.

Naruto thought about it for a while before another thought popped into his head, "Do you remember when Clara taught you my native tongue?" He hadn't even considered it until just then, and it could be very bad if they got split up and she didn't know the language.

"Yes, I am pretty well versed in learning and remembering a new language, unlike some" she said as she looked at him.

"Hey I know how to read and write in three languages. It's not my fault if I mess them up from time to time?" He defended himself. It really wasn't his fault, languages were hard, and when you didn't use them that often you tended to forget them.

The pair continued walking until they found what looked like an inn of some kind. After entering they were greeted by a rather stout man, he had dark skin with blonde hair, brown eyes and a crooked nose that looked like it had been broken and hadn't been set properly.

"_Can I help you"_ he asked looking at the pair, the man looked at them, and he couldn't help but think that the pair was rather odd. The female more than the male.

The male wore a dark leather coat with an orange shirt with a spiral pattern on it, he had a pair of green goggles on his forehead, short blonde hair, blue eyes, and what looked like whisker marks on his cheeks. The male set him on edge due the fact that he had a lot of knives attached to some straps that were under the coat. A strange sword belted to his waist, and he was carrying a rather large backpack.

The female had orange hair, and pointy ears, that was rather odd, he had never seen someone with point ears before, they were like the boy's whisker markings. She wore a short black jacket that was open showing a green tunic top. She wore a pair of dark trousers and a pair of combat boots. She was carrying a violin in what could only be described as a violin holster on her back.

Naruto and Kiva looked between each other before Kiva decided to speak, _"We were wondering if you have any rooms" _she said as clearly as she could, she may know the language but that didn't mean that her accent would make it easy to understand her.

"_Yes there are rooms available, how many and for how long?" _ While the male did set him on edge, it was only slightly more than when he would have shinobi stay in his inn. And that was due to the fact that he couldn't see any markings on them that indicated that they were from Kumo. However if they were paying customers there was no need to toss them out. Money was money after all.

"So what do you think?" Naruto asked, "Will we be able to get a room with what we got?" it didn't matter to him in the end he could sleep on the ground, in his training with Clara he had been taught to sleep nearly anywhere that he could as long as it was safe.

Kiva thought over it for a moment, she had gauged the man's response on his reaction to them and while he seemed surprised if not slightly apprehensive he had not told them to leave. "I think it will, give me your backpack for a moment." She said.

Taking off his backpack he handed it over to Kiva, and watched as she tried to search through it, it may not be as good as Clara coat for storage, but it was better than his original pack.

Kiva opened up the pack and started to try and find there different coin pouches, "How much room do you have left in this?" she asked as she tried to shuffle through all the junk, it had blades, weapons, books, miscellaneous crap he had found such as empty boxes that looked cool, cutlery and an actual stick that he took off a tree.

"I think it is nearly full, I should probably clean it out." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly as he answered, the backpack could carry two hundred pounds of wait and only feel like ten pounds.

Sighing kiva found one of the pouches she was looking for, taking it out she removed two gold pieces from it, it was way more than what the room would actually cost, but there was no guaranteeing that the man would accept it.

"_How much is a room?" _Kiva asked as politely as she could.

The man behind the counter looked at her before answering _"A room is fifty ryo double bed is sixty and two singles is sixty-five, two rooms are ninety."_

'_Well that helps a lot'_ thought Kiva sarcastically she was hoping to try and gauge what the currency might be like in comparison to theirs, though if she had to guess she would say that one ryo would be equivalent to one piece of silver, fifty silver was still a ridiculous price for a room, but it made more sense than it being fifty gold or fifty copper.

Naruto deciding that he had enough moved forward taking the two coins from Kiva, _"us get with this?"_ He asked as he set one coin down.

Kiva could only shake her head at his attempt, _"He means, what will this get us?" _she said before turning to Naruto "It's your language how can you mess it up?"

The man looked at the coin on the table, he had never seen someone try to pay for something with only coins. He was about to admonish them and tell them to get out when he noticed that unlike the coins he was used to this one was gold. Picking it up he looked it over before biting on it, after checking it for a moment he handed it back to Naruto before saying "One moment" he left for a few moments before coming back with a small scale.

Taking the coin he weighed it and looked it over again. "I'll give you two rooms for it" he said.

The man had been surprised by the coin, he had to say that the pair either knew who to talk to or were extraordinary lucky that he had been on tonight. There were few in the village except the metal works, which could classify that they had actual gold pieces. The piece would have bought them four rooms, he figured if they had one they probably had more. But someone attempting to pay in gold probably new something about what they were doing.

He would have been willing to bet that the girl if not both of them knew that they were getting ripped off. He could of attempted to go higher but he figured it to be a fool's errand, he would make double the profit, and any higher and he would be likely to provoke some kind of action from them. He wasn't a fighter and he wasn't a fool. He would take his small victory and count his blessings.

The pair nodded to his words and he went to get them there keys, _"top floor the last to rooms in the corridor."_ He told them.

Taking the keys the two made their way upstairs to find their rooms and get some sleep. They would have a long day tomorrow.

-()-

Omake

A new adventure, Part one

Naruto and Kiva had been traveling together for a few days, at every junction Naruto would repeat the process of tossing his sword into the air to find which way he would take. They had just gotten off the train at one of the junction towns and Naruto was currently sitting in a tavern playing at cards.

Traveling with Clara had been rather enlightening, you could find out many things in a tavern, if you knew to listen. But more than that there was always people who would mention something about jobs needing done. Or rumours that they had heard.

He was onto the third hand of the evening when he was approached at the table, "Come on I have something, it's not much but it will give us something to do." He heard Kiva speak from his side. He wasn't quite sure when she got there but that didn't matter at the moment. Setting down his cards he turned to the players.

"Well I'm out" he said as he picked up his winnings.

With that both left the tavern.

"So what is this work?" Naruto asked.

"The lord of Wrivenrun, which is a large settlement about a day from here by walk is trying to get some people to look into a problem that he has been having. So I figured why not check it out." She said as she began to walk forward.

Naruto thought about it for a moment seeing no problem he continued on. Shouldering the bag he got from the base for his books he followed after her.

-()-

The journey hadn't been long Wrivenrun had been day by walking considering standard pace, both he and Kiva could travel faster than that to make it in half a day. Though Kiva was catching her breath when they made it to Wrivenrun, and Naruto himself felt short of breath. Though he was doing better than Kiva.

"So how do we go about this?" Naruto asked.

"You see the building in the centre there?" she said while pointing to a large three story building, "that's where the lord is, so all we have to do is go there and tell them that we are responding to the lord's want for people." She said simply.

Naruto looked at the settlement, it was about the size of two villages. Not big enough to be a city, but bigger than what he had originally expected. All the buildings were built out of wood, with thatch roofs. There was a mixture of races in the village as well, which was always a good thing.

The pair walked through the streets and noticed children playing and running around looking rather happy, the town seemed peaceful and if they had to guess it was probably prosperous as well.

As they made their way to the main building where the lord resided they were stopped by a couple of guards.

"Halt!" one man said.

"What brings you here?" the other asked.

"Your lord wanted help, we came to help" Naruto said to the pair. Kiva sighed at how Naruto chose to answer them.

"What my friend means is that we are responding to the request that the lord of Wrivenrun is looking for some help with a problem." Kiva said.

The two guards looked at the pair, it was true that the lord had wanted help with a problem but these were two children who looked no older then fifteen. Both barely looked above five foot, what use could they be. The two were about to tell them to go on home that they had no use here when they noticed that the blonde one had not only walked past them but was in the process of preparing to kick, actually kick the main door open.

The two guards were about to move to stop him when they realised it was too late.

The main doors of the building opened with a sudden bang that brought the attention of everyone who was standing in the main corridor to the doors. They were surprised to see a boy of about five foot in height standing at the door.

Two men who had been standing a little further in the room quickly spun around in what seemed to be preparation for conflict.

"Good work Naruto that's how you show that your non hostile kick in the door" Kiva said in a rather sarcastic manner.

"What'd you expect the two idiots out there were about to tell us to leave. Dattebayo!" Naruto shouted.

"What are two children doing here?" that caught the pairs' attention as they turned to see two men standing in front of them.

The one on the right seemed to be in his thirties with long black hair, a scraggly beard, and robes of a mixture of colours, predominantly dark reds and greens. It seemed rather sore on the eye. He was also holding a long wooden staff.

The second man was younger seeming to be about twenty one or twenty two. He had short hair and was clean shaven. He wore chain mail, embezzled on his chest was a skeletal hand holding a pair of weighing scales. He himself was carrying a spear. His skin was a more ivory in colour, but the most noticeable aspect of him was the pointed ears, they were significantly more pointed than Kiva's

"Oy what do you mean 'what are children doing here', the guy in charge wanted help, we came to help. What's a pair of old timers doing here?" Naruto shouted his response.

The man holding the staff had put up his hand to stop any further outburst, "it would seem that we are both here for the same reason, so then we should proceed, and not keep the Lord waiting much longer."

"Before that all of you must relinquish your weapons here, you will be able to collect them on the way out." One of the guards said.

All four people grumbled for a moment before the oldest man walked up, he set down his staff on the table.

The next man came up and set down his spear.

The third to go was Kiva, who placed two daggers onto the table.

The final one was Naruto, walking up he set down his sword, he then took off his coat and took off his holster setting that on the table. Reaching down he pulled out a knife from his left boot. As well as taking another from his lower back. Before lifting his coat and placing it back on.

The two men and the guards stared wide eyed at the fifteen year old. They had noticed that the holster also had a hand crossbow on it as well.

"Okay can we go now?" The guard nodded and led the way through the hallways until they came to a grand room in the centre of the building.

The room was huge, it went all the way to the roof, where there was a skylight shining in. There were wooden pillars all down the aisles each adorned with symbols, shields and weapons. If Naruto had to guess each marking would have been contributed by the previous lords. He did find it funny that they take away their weapons only to place them in a room where he can easily get his hands on one.

"My Lord" the guard said. "These four are here to see you about the situation that has arisen."

The man was sitting on a wooden throne that looked rather lavish, it was made out of a hard wood and was varnished, letting it gleam in the light. The lord was a man in his fifties, he had slight greying hair and wore rather regal looking clothes. He looked at the four gathered before speaking.

"I am Lord Rothlan Highguard. The task that I have is rather simple, to the east of here is a cave that several of my men have vanished in. I have sent two search parties, and neither have returned. I want you to go and look into it." He spoke with a voice that suited his position.

The four gathered each had a different thoughts going through their head as his words. The two men looked between each other and Naruto and Kiva as if trying to size up each other.

The silence was broken however by Naruto, "What is in it for us, and will you be supplying transport to that place or will we have to make it ourselves."

"Upon the success of finding out what has been causing this problem and dealing with it you will be rewarded, we will provide you horses for the journey is there anything else?" Rothlan asked.

Again the four looked between each other, none having anything to say the oldest of the motley crew spoke, "It will be done." And with that he turned around and started to leave.

The second man nodded his head in agreement and left as well.

Kiva looked towards Naruto waiting to see his response, "Yea sure I'll do it" Naruto said before walking out. Kiva nodded along and followed, she didn't really have a care in this matter.

The four made their way back to the main entrance and picked up there stuff, as Naruto looked at his pile he realised something. "Who took one of my knives?" he said turning around.

"Pay up people I told you he would notice" one of the guards said, others were grumbling while a third handed over the knife that had been taken out.

As the group left Naruto felt angry that someone thought they could take one of his blades.

When they were outside Kiva decided to break the ice with a simple question. "My name is Kiva, what are your names?"

"Astros Raygol" said the man with the staff.

"Rathal Haladar" said the other man.

"Naruto Uzumaki" Naruto said at the end. Then a question popped into Naruto's mind that he wanted to ask.

"So which one of you actually gave up all your weapons when they asked for them?" he asked.

He heard all three members of the group chuckle, he knew Kiva hadn't, considering that Kiva primarily used her violin.

"A wizard boy is never far from a weapon as long as he can still channel" Astros said to him.

"Talamur protects me and gives me strength, even without my spear I am still his instrument." Rathal said. "Though did you not give up all your weapons, surely you couldn't have been hiding more."

Naruto looked at him before speaking, "If I have a blade hidden in one of my boots, why wouldn't I hide one in the other?" He asked.

That caused the men to chuckle, "I guess it's time to set off. The sooner we get there the sooner we get done" Astros said.

The rag tag group of two humans, an elf and a half-elf set off if only they knew what they had gotten themselves involved.

A.N

And that is chapter ten.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed.


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